


Real

by SgtMac



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Established Relationship, F/F, Post SAFE, Swan Queen - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-06
Updated: 2014-02-24
Packaged: 2018-01-11 08:45:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 44,800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1171052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SgtMac/pseuds/SgtMac
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The 4-part follow-up to SAFE. While the ladies try to navigate their new and often turbulent romantic relationship, Emma finds herself caught in the crossfire of Regina's bloody past, which causes a frightened Regina to consider surrendering all of her hard-fought for emotional progress in order to defend and avenge Emma. SwanQueen established, Regina/Snow. Non-graphic .</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Finally, the long promised one (cough, four-part) shot sequel to SAFE (it will eventually be posted in full here, but for now can be found over on FF.Net)
> 
> Here's what you need to know if you haven't read SAFE (which you should have): Post the Miller's Daughter and Cora's death, Emma and Henry kidnapped Regina and took her out of Storybrooke. Together, they worked through many of Regina and Emma's issues and the two ladies fell together and started a romantic relationship. We're now six month since they've returned to town.
> 
> Warnings: This will be a fairly dark and intense piece overall, but it's about testing Regina's recovery and Regina and Emma's faith in each other. It's also about building a foundation for Regina and Snow to finally move forward on.
> 
> There is some violence and language within.

"Regina," he says softly, because they've been sitting in his office together for almost ten minutes, and she's done little more than smooth out the nonexistent wrinkles on her charcoal colored slacks.

"I know," she says coolly. "I'm paying you handsomely to hear me talk, and I'm not."

"I don't care about the money; I care about you. Did you have another one of your bad dreams last night?" Archie asks, his voice so very calm. They've been doing these sessions for almost six months now, and he's been going out of his way not to repeat the mistakes he'd made the first time that he'd tried to counsel her through her issues. He won't betray her trust this time.

So he waits patiently for her to confirm, and he doesn't push because there are crinkling lines around her eyes and mouth. He watches the way that she anxiously rubs her hands together, her fingers never quite coming together.

He thinks that she may not even be aware that this is one of her tells.

Finally, the former queen nods her head sharply because she probably knows that it would be downright silly to try and pull back and away from this conversation (no matter how unwanted it is) and her feelings now.

After all, she had been the one who had opened the door to this discussion by admitting recurring nightmares to him several weeks earlier. It's probably best to continue down this path now, and try to deal with the dream right here and now. She thinks maybe it's better to resolve it all in her mind in this room rather than do it with Emma's worried eyes gazing back at her.

Emma had known that something had been wrong that morning, but she'd just handed Regina a cup of coffee, and gently reminded her that if she wanted to talk about anything, well then the sheriff was only a call away. It'd been Emma's not nearly as subtle as she might have thought it to be – but still appreciated - way of giving her space while offering her support.

Which, Regina supposes, is what's supposed to occur in adult relationships like the one that she and Emma have been trying to navigate their way through for the last six months. They've been largely successful as long as they manage to find time to spend with each other; when Storybrooke and the needs of others interrupt, things have a bad habit of breaking down.

That's when they fight like the bitter enemies they'd once been because they stop talking and listening. That's when the walls come back up, and Regina starts to feel the woman that she doesn't want to be emerging.

Still, despite those thankfully rare and frightening moments, things have actually been pretty good for the two of them. Sometimes too good for Regina to not get anxious and wonder when the other shoe – or boot - is about to drop; wonder when it's all about to end.

She sighs loudly, looks down at her twisting hands, shoves them both into the pocket of the gray blazer that she's wearing (while she dons more casual clothing around the house these days, she still insists on dressing as well as she is expected to whenever she is out and about town) and says in a voice that's shaky and steady all at once, "Yes, it was something of a nightmare."

"Would you like to tell me about it?" Archie prompts as he removes his glasses, does a quick clean of them with the hem of his shirt (a poor habit, the former queen muses), and then puts them back onto his face.

Regina bites back the impulse to snap at him, because of course she wants to tell him about it. That's why she's here. That's why she's been doing this since she and Emma and Henry had returned to town so many months ago.

The main reason that she doesn't snap at him, though, is because she knows that Archie means well. Just as Emma had simply watched her with knowing green eyes this morning – surely she'd been awoken on several occasions by Regina's restless tossing and turning the previous evening – Archie is being calm and patient, and he's just waiting for her to open up and let him in.

"I dreamt of a young boy," she says, her hands rolling into tight fists inside the pockets of her jacket. "He was someone that I knew only briefly, but what happened to him…what I did to him, I probably destroyed his life."

"Do you regret it?"

"Yes," she confesses, her anxiety spiking as she speaks. "I've spent so much time refusing to have regrets about anything because everything that I have done has brought me to Henry and to a place where I'm so very close to real happiness that it's….well, it's frightening, but what I did to Owen –"

"You remember his name?" he asks, recalling a conversation that he'd had with her from years earlier. Then, it had been about the hole in her heart – though he hadn't understood how literal that actually was back then – and the solution that she'd come up with had been to bring a child into her life because the only time she'd felt less than empty had been with Owen.

"I think I always will. I destroyed his life."

Archie nods slowly, his face passive. "What did you do to him?"

"I killed his father," she replies.

"Why?"

"Because I felt like I had no choice but to kill him," she sighs. "Owen had left Storybrooke, and all I had was a man who had seen too much of a town that I didn't think would ever move forward. I was so very angry and hurt and afraid, and even if I wasn't happy with what the curse had given me, I wasn't about to lose everything because of a man named Kurt Flynn."

"Did you remove his heart?"

"No; I didn't have enough magic for that. I had very little magic left to me at all, actually, but what I did have was enough to force Graham to do whatever I wanted him to do. I told Graham to kill Kurt." She shakes her head in disgust as old memories rush forward. "I don't know what I was expecting him to do exactly, but I guess the world that we're in now had already bled into Graham's psyche, and when I told him to do that, he pulled out his gun and shot Kurt between the eyes."

Archie twitches, and his jaw tightens, but he says nothing, just listens to her.

He really is an actually good man, she thinks. She wonders if he feels dirty after their sessions, if he feels like he's touched something dark and angry.

But then he's smiling slightly at her – gentle compassion and not judgment in his eyes – and she allows herself a breath, and keeps speaking even though every word she says causes something inside of her to hurt. "He was the last person that I killed – had killed - until Emma came to town twenty-eight years later, and I…well you know what happened with Graham."

"It's still difficult for you to talk about him," Archie notes.

Her eyes flicker up to him, but she doesn't deny his words.

"Is it still difficult to speak about him with Emma?" he asks. Because of the joint therapy sessions that she and Emma have been having with Archie since their return from the beach house, he remains the only person in town besides Henry and Neal who knows about their romantic relationship.

He'd been surprised about it, and then he hadn't been.

Instead, he'd just gestured towards the couch and told them both to sit.

Regina figures that he's earned her trust by this point.

Or at least as much trust as she's willing to extend to anyone who isn't Henry or Emma.

"It is," she admits. "But we…we do try to. Every now and again."

"That's good. Have you told her about this dream?"

"Not this one, no."

"Why not?"

"Because dealing with the things that I did to her family in the Enchanted Forest and what I did to Graham has been hard enough for her," Regina allows, her hands once again outside of her pockets and anxiously rubbing together. "She knows who I am better than anyone else, and she knows what I'm capable of because she lost someone that she cared about because of me. She never knew Owen or Kurt Flynn, but I think it's probably easier for her to believe that there was only one life that I took in this world."

"Emma can handle the truth."

"Perhaps she can," Regina allows, her eyes for a moment focusing on a random spot on the far wall. "But I'm not completely sure that I want her to have to."

"Fair enough," Archie says. "So let's talk about something else besides what you did to Graham. Tell me about your nightmare. Was Emma in it?"

"No," Regina replies. "It was just me and Graham and Kurt and Owen. I see Graham putting his gun to Kurt's forehead, and then I notice that Owen is standing there. He's watching us execute his father, and he's begging us not to do this to him. But we do. We still do it. I still tell Graham to kill him."

"Did Owen see what happened in actuality?"

"He didn't; he was already on the opposite side of the town line," Regina replies, her right hand lifting to flick away a stray tear that's caught in her eyelashes. She almost looks angry at herself for daring to be emotional about this, outraged that she's tearing up over one of her greatest sins.

"How long have you been having this specific nightmare?"

"What makes you think that this wasn't the first one?"

For almost anyone else, this dance would be obnoxious, but Archie has learned over time that pulling things out of Regina require a bit of box stepping, and he's even figured out most of the steps along the way. "You told me previously that you've been having bad dreams for awhile, but none of them have seemed to upset you as much as this one has. So, call it an educated guess, but I think this nightmare is particularly unnerving to you."

"Yes, I suppose that's true," she chuckles, the sound dry. "I've had this nightmare or variations of it since day one, but I've been having it far more frequently since we returned to Storybrooke. At first, they were just recaps of what had occurred, but over time, new elements have been added in."

"Such as Owen?"

"Indeed, though he's a fairly new addition. I've had other dreams about him, but never ones where he saw what we did. Never ones where he looked right at me, and promised that one day he'd make me pay for everything."

"Are you afraid that he will?"

She smiles grimly, almost sadly. "Perhaps I'm afraid that he won't."

"I don't understand."

"I'm not sure that I do, either, Doctor," Regina admits, her hands in her pockets again. "What I do know is that being with Emma, and having Henry back in my life, and wanting to be there, it's changed things inside of me."

"Isn't that a good thing?"

"Is it?" she challenges. "Emma believes in me, but I still think that has something to do with the fact that she never saw me as I really was. As I am still capable of being. What if I'm not worthy of her belief in me? What if I can't handle all the changes that are happening, and I try to escape her."

"Interesting choice of words," he observes. "Do you feel trapped with her?"

"Quite the opposite."

"And that's frightening?"

"It's terrifying, and some mornings, I want to destroy everything simply because I know that if…" she shakes her head as if to suggest that even saying such words is too much. It's amazing how much she's opened up in this session, he thinks, but in fairness, she's been getting better there, too.

So many things are changing inside of her, indeed.

He smiles kindly at her. "Regina, what do you think of your relationship with Emma right now? Where would you say that it is? Are things working?"

"I…I think that they are."

"She's living with you, correct?"

"Not officially, though she's certainly there enough to be. And she hung her hideous jacket up in my closet a few days ago so I suppose that means something." She scowls when she says this, but it feels false to even her.

"But you still haven't told anyone else about your relationship, correct?"

"They would never understand. They would look at Emma like she's gone crazy, and they would suspect me of having manipulated her. Or worse."

"What's worse?"

"Casting a spell on her. Forcing her to be with me against her will."

"But surely everyone knows that love can't be forced."

Her eyes widen almost comically, and there's the reaction he was going for.

"Is it safe to assume that you and Emma still haven't expressed your feelings to each other?" he asks, his voice so calm and judgment free. It's enough to make her want to scream because he should think that this whole thing is as absurd as she does. He should think that Emma's gone completely crazy.

She certainly does.

"We're comfortable right now," Regina hedges.

"And are you comfortable staying in that comfort zone long term?"

"As opposed to?"

"Moving forward?"

"And where would that be to?" Regina challenges. "What place could be better than the one where we are now? I get to wake up beside her almost every morning, and I get to see my son for breakfast and dinner, and I can almost convince myself these days that tomorrow will be another day just as lovely and wonderful as the one before it. I can almost even believe it."

"You don't really believe that it will be, do you?" Archie pushes back, his voice never rising and his patience never wavering. "Deep down, you believe that as soon as you start having faith in a future, Emma will wake up to who she is with, and then she'll end things and walk away with Henry."

Regina shakes her head, her lips lifting into a thin humorless smile. "I'm not worried about Henry, actually, and I know that seems unimaginable, but I actually believe her when she says she wouldn't take him from me again."

"But you don't believe her when she says that she won't leave you?"

"We haven't really talked about it. Not since the night we got back here, and I showed her my crypt. I warned her then, but the truth is that if she chose to leave me, there's nothing that I could do to stop her from it."

"Perhaps you should talk to her about this," he suggests.

"No. The last thing I want is for her to make a promise she can't keep, and we both know that no matter what's inside of her heart, she would do that."

"You don't know how she feels. Maybe it wouldn't be the lie you expect."

"It doesn't matter; I know that she cares about me," Regina permits.

"Have you considered that maybe she feels more for you than just that? Have you considered that perhaps you feel more for her than just care?"

Regina looks away, her dark eyes back on that spot on the far wall. "No," she finally answers, her low voice thick and heavy. "No, I haven't."

"Regina –"

"Owen is why I learned to cook."

"Excuse me?"

"That boy. He was in my life so briefly, and I did him so much harm, but he stayed with me. I remembered him. I learned to cook because he hated my food, and because I wasn't good enough for him to want to stay with me."

"Regina, he was a child, and he already had a father."

"I know that," she replies, her voice dull and miserable. "I know it seems crazy to make it all about food, but my whole life has been about not being good enough for anyone. That doesn't change just because I want it to."

"Maybe it does. Maybe you're good enough for her," he suggests as he leans forward so he can meet her eyes. This feels like an important moment right now – she's actually opened up and is talking to him and she clearly wants him to reassure her so he does. "Maybe you're who Emma wants."

"You don't understand."

"Then help me to."

Her hands clench and unclench, and then she jams them roughly back into her pockets, the movements highlighting her clear agitation. "I can't."

"Because you yourself don't actually understand," Archie says, and it's not a question but rather a firm statement that two long years ago he would have been far too intimidated by her to make. Back in those awful cursed days, he would never have dared call out on her self-loathing and lack of faith.

Now, it feels like he'd be shirking his duty to her not to do it.

"No, I don't understand," Regina confirms. "I don't understand why she is still with me. We got together because we connected at the beach house, but now that we're back in the real world…or whatever Storybrooke is, it doesn't make sense for her to choose something so imperfect. "

"Have you even entertained the idea that she is actually in love with you?"

"Of course not," she replies, her voice flat and firm, like even the mere idea that the Savior could ever love the Evil Queen is pure and absurd fantasy.

"Well, have you entertained the idea that you're in love with her?"

The former queen says nothing, barely moves a muscle, so suddenly still.

"Regina."

"I think our time is up here," she stays, standing up abruptly. She pulls the sides of her blazer tightly around her, like she's fortifying her armor and bringing her walls back up; whatever opening he'd had is long gone now.

He leans back in his chair. "Okay," he says gently. "I'll see you Friday."

"Of course."

"Good. Regina, I'm really glad that you're coming to see me."

She takes two steps towards the door, her heels softly tapping against the thin carpet, and then stops, her back still to him as she mutters, "So am I."

The door closes quietly behind her, and he wonders with a humorless smile why it is that he feels like Pandora's Box has suddenly been torn open.

***** *****

She's walking out of Archie's office when she sees him. She's been seeing him wandering around town for the last six months, and she thinks that she should probably pay him more attention than she does because he doesn't belong inside of Storybrooke. He should have left and gone home after he'd been released from the hospital, but he'd chosen to stay and immerse himself in Storybrooke, and there hadn't really been a way to force him out.

Not that she would have chosen that path, anyway.

She's just barely the Mayor of Storybrooke again these days. It's truly more ceremonial than anything else, though she certainly gets more than her fair share of paperwork. All the same, she's essentially powerless, and she finds that she lacks the heart or desire for anything resembling a power struggle.

What she wants these days is to get home so that she can hear her son and her lover laughing about something inane. She wants to get back to her no longer empty house so she can hide away with them, and feel so very safe.

"Mr. Mendell," she says coolly because he's looking right at her. Part of her wants to just ignore his existence completely, but well, she is trying here.

Trying so very hard to make Emma and Henry happy, and then hopefully one day, that will be enough for her to believe that she can be happy, too.

"Madam Mayor," he says with something of a knowing smirk. Like they're sharing some kind of wicked secret. "It's a beautiful day, isn't it?"

"It certainly is," she agrees with a nod. She forces a smile onto her face, and wonders if it looks as fake as it feels. "So I'll let you return to it, then."

"Of course. Oh, before you go, how's Emma doing?"

Regina cocks her head to the side. "I believe she's doing well. Why?"

He shrugs his shoulders. "I was thinking of asking her out on a date."

For a long moment, she just stares back at Greg, like she's trying to figure out why this feels so very strange. It shouldn't be, she thinks. Only Archie, Henry and Neal are aware that the Savior and the Queen are together, and no one else actually knows that Emma really isn't into men these days.

It shouldn't be at all strange because Emma is a beautiful, strong and capable woman. She's also the only daughter of storybook royalty, and even in a town without a monarchy, that still means something to most people.

So, yeah, this shouldn't be confusing and befuddling her so much, but it is because the idea of Emma Swan and Greg Mendell is just preposterous.

Does Emma even know Greg outside of official police business?

Does he know her?

What does it matter, anyway?

She reminds herself that there's no need for jealousy here.

Still, she can't stop herself from saying, "I believe she's seeing someone."

"Is she? Who?"

Regina grits her teeth, and flexes her fingers. She hasn't used magic in over eight months now, and she's not about to fall off the wagon for him.

"I don't know," she lies. "I don't make it my business to be in her life."

"Oh," he says, and she's struck by the understanding that he knows that she had just lied right to his face. He smiles – all teeth – and nods. "Okay, then."

"Yes, okay," she repeats. "Good day, Mr. Mendell."

"Good day, Regina," he replies, and she feels the hairs on the back of her neck going flying up like he'd just told her that he was going to kill her.

She tells herself that she's just off-kilter because of her session with Archie.

Because of his ridiculous question about her feelings for Emma.

She tells herself that it's just old paranoia kicking around within her.

She watches Greg walk down the street, watches him enter the diner, and she lets out a nervous chuckle because she really needs to get a grip. She shoves her hands deep into her pockets, takes what she means to be a steadying breath (it doesn't quite work, but it'll do), and then makes her way to her Benz, and gets inside of it. One more glance back at the diner – back to where Greg Mendell had just been – and she decides that this kind of worry is beneath a woman of her station, and she needs to just let it go.

Let it go, and go home.

To her family.

***** *****

Emma's eyes are on her from almost the moment she steps inside the house, the green sparking so fiercely and curiously that there's no way for Regina to doubt that her lover has spent most of the day worrying about her. So she steps close to Emma, puts a hand over her bicep, gives it a good hard squeeze and says, "I'm fine, dear. Dr. Hopper was very helpful."

"Yeah?" She sounds doubtful, like she knows that she's being fed the line that she is.

"I did an admirable job in assigning him the position of town therapist."

Emma snorts.

"I did run into someone interesting," Regina continues, not really interested in speaking of Archie or her session with him. She'd be more than happy to not think about their discussion at all, to be honest. "Greg Mendell."

"I wouldn't call him interesting," Emma sighs. "Frankly, I don't trust him."

"Has he done anything to warrant that?"

"Sticking around is enough for that."

Regina chuckles. "Yes, only lunatics do that."

"Exactly," Emma agrees, an impish smile on her lips. She slides herself behind Regina, wraps her arms around her waist, nuzzles into her neck and mumbles, "So, what happened?"

"He told me that he wanted to ask you out on a date?"

"Really?" Emma asks, turning Regina around so that they're face to face.

"Really."

"Is he still alive?"

"He is. Did you suspect otherwise?"

"You don't share your toys," Emma shrugs.

"I would hardly consider you to be one of my toys."

Emma's bright eyes cloud over with something that's not quite definable for the briefest of moments. They're almost soft and wet, but then she blinks, and whatever had been there before is gone, and Emma is smiling widely.

"Aww," she says before she leans in and kisses Regina on the mouth.

Regina rolls her eyes, and pushes the sheriff away from her with a grunt of indignant disgust, but it's all fun and games, and they both know it. "Where's Henry this evening?" she asks as she steps over towards the refrigerator and pulls open the door. Her eyes scan the contents, and she starts to assemble various different potential dinner plates in her mind.

"With my parents tonight. He's teaching David how to play Mario Kart."

"I can't imagine that going well; David can barely handle his own truck."

"Exactly," Emma agrees with a nod of her head before she slides closer again. She has no inclination to spend too much time talking about her parents; since returning to the "real world" that is Storybrooke, there's been a tentative but undeniably uneasy kind of peace between her parents and Regina. Really, it's more of a truce or to be more accurate, it's been an unspoken agreement to try to stay as clear of each other as possible, and to not interfere in Emma spending time with whomever she wants to.

It's been working out so far.

But everyone knows that it can't last forever.

Because Emma doesn't want her family split in two. Eventually, she's going to want to bring the people she cares about as close together as possible.

Right now, though, Emma doesn't want to think about her parents or reconciliations; she wants to focus on the dangerously beautiful woman standing just in front of her. And what she really – really - wants to focus in on is the fact that they have the house to themselves for the whole night.

So with a predatory grin that only Regina could understand, she does.

***** *****

Regina's back arches up and off the bed, and she cries out, her fingers scrabbling for the silk sheets even as her eyes try to roll into the back of her head. She hears a low chuckle from above her, and feels just a brief moment of annoyance before pale soft lips are claiming hers in a kiss that can only be described as possessive. After that, all coherent thought is just gone.

A hand slides into the one of hers that is clutching the sheet, settling first over her wrist before it turns her palm around and weaves fingers between hers, refusing to let her hold onto anything besides the woman atop her.

When Emma's mouth finally leaves hers – traveling down to roughly nip at the feverishly heated skin of her elegant throat – she gasps out something that might be in English or it might be in Spanish for all she knows.

She can feel the hand that isn't wrapped around her own dancing gently against her bare hipbone, and she has to force herself not to demand that Emma immediately cease her teasing and just get on with it. Not because she doesn't want that – because oh, does she – but because Regina just knows that letting Emma know that she's just barely holding herself together right now will only push the sheriff to slow down even before.

Emma Swan is a bit of an ass like that.

Which isn't to say that Regina wouldn't do exactly the same thing.

Because she would. Oh, she would.

That doesn't make this little game of Emma's right now at all acceptable, however. It doesn't make the rapidly alerting gentle and rough touches permissible in the least; no, this is close to a declaration of war, she thinks.

Not that she could – or would – stop it even if she wanted to.

And she doesn't want to. Not even a little.

"Emma," she whispers as her fingers tangle with the blonde's. The hand that's not being held jumps up and grips at the sheriff's back, her tips pressing into exposed flesh hard enough to leave bruises and welt. "Emma."

The sheriff chuckles again – the sound rumbling up through her throat in a way that makes something warm surge through Regina - and then moves her mouth down to claim a hardened nipple in her mouth, her wet tongue flicking against it even as her hand squeezes Regina's as tightly as possible.

Like she knows exactly what she's doing to the former queen.

She does.

She switches breasts at the same time as she moves her hands from hip to thigh, and then up to where Regina most wants it, and can least handle it.

As so many different feelings and emotions rush through Regina, her feet move up and down like she's trying to run a race, and she wonders when it is that she'd lost the stillness – the calm – that had been trained into her through rage and disastrous discipline. She wonders exactly when it had been that Emma Swan had turned her into a shuddering mess of a woman.

She doesn't have an answer for that, and thankfully, she's allowed to not have to think right now because all she's doing is feeling, and everything feels so very good and wonderful, and so she throws her head back and surrenders to the electric touches and the ferocity of Emma's passion.

Until Emma ruins it all by lifting her mouth away from Regina's breast, and speaking softly into lover's ear even as she gently pushes inside of her.

Until Emma turns everything upside down by saying simply, "I love you," in a voice too quiet and controlled to be doubted even in the middle of this.

Regina sees white lights and stars and all of those foolish romantic things that she's far too jaded to believe in, and her body feels so very good.

Her heart and her mind, though, well those are different matters entirely.

Her heart feels a surge of something that can only be described as fierce perfect emotion – the kind that is so good and wonderful – but her mind feels the fear of wondering if a bridge to nowhere has just been crossed.

She thinks of Archie's curious queries about the nature of Emma's feelings, and wonders why it is that it seems like life always provides an answer to every question even when it's neither needed nor especially desired.

Emma doesn't give her time to think too much, though. Not yet, anyway.

Because she's still kissing the former queen everywhere, still touching and moving and still pressing herself close enough so that Regina can hear the strength of Emma's perfect heart, the way it pounds out a powerful beat.

"Stay with me," Emma whispers, leaning up to kiss Regina's forehead, her eyelids and then her lips, each embrace one so gentle and loving.

"I'm here," Regina murmurs, her head falling to the pillow. Many years ago, she would have called this moment surrender, and perhaps that's exactly what this is now, too. The fear that she feels is rumbling through her insides, and she knows that once she's away from Emma's arms and the sound of her strong heart, the panic will certainly overwhelm her, but for now, she feels a kind of curious calm because she's looking right at Emma, and their eyes are meeting in a way that they've come to understand as being truthful.

"Good," Emma says, and then she leans in and kisses Regina again, all of the emotion that she's feeling – the undeniably ill-advised words that she'd just said – surging to the surface as she presses herself against her lover.

Yes, this is surrender, Regina thinks.

It has never felt so terrifying nor so desperately desired.

And she's never felt so damned nor so blessed.

***** *****

The former queen is putting the dishes away when a freshly showered and dressed for work Emma comes down the stairs, her footsteps soft thanks to her socked feet. She's in a good mood, almost whistling because she's so completely Prince Charming's little girl, but it evaporates immediately when she sees the unmistakable tension in Regina's shoulders.

"Regina," she says cautiously as she comes up behind her. She puts her hands out and starts rubbing at the former queen's tight muscles. "You okay?"

"I'm fine," she snaps back, her voice sharp and terse. She pulls away from Emma and crosses over to the cupboard to put several plates away. The sound she makes is loud and dramatic, which tells Emma all that she really needs to know.

"Right. Because you look okay. You going to tell me what this is about?"

"I had a bad dream," Regina replies. "That's all."

Emma nods her head. "You know what? Normally, I would believe that because I've gotten pretty used to you tossing and turning at night and saying all kinds of weird stuff like 'stop' and 'please, no', but last night, you slept like a baby once you knocked out. So how about you try again."

"Emma."

"Regina."

The former queen turns around, her back pressed to the counter like it's some kind of safety for her. "It's nothing; I just woke up…it's nothing."

"Stop lying to me. Please." Emma steps towards her again. "This is about what I said last night, isn't it? You're freaking out because I said that I –"

"Stop speaking."

"Well that confirms that." Another step and she's right in front of a woman who suddenly looks skittish. "How late were you up thinking about things?  I never felt you kick me so I thought maybe you were sleeping well for once, but that's not what happened, is it? You were obsessing over me saying –"

"Don't," Regina hisses.

"Why not?"

"Because you don't mean it."

"I don't?"

"You throw around that word so easily and casually because that's what you Charming fools do. It's so easy to believe in love because you always get it."

"I do?" Emma shakes her head. "That's news to me, and it's bullshit from you. Better than anyone, Regina, you know what I've been through, and you know that I don't fall in love at the drop of a hat. If you want to fight about this because you're scared about what I said, well then fine, we can do that because yeah, it's pretty damned scary, but don't you dare act like saying those words was easy for me because you know otherwise. You know."

Regina closes her eyes, and takes a breath. "I know," she says. "I'm sorry."

"Are we all the way back to me asking you to believe in me again?"

"It's not about that. It's…you can't love me, Emma."

"I do."

"No. You said it during sex. You were caught up in the moment."

"I said it while I was watching you be happy."

"Emma –"

"I love you," the sheriff says. "For better or for worse, I'm in love with you."

"That's impossible."

"It's not. You know, Regina, I have never once deluded myself into thinking that this thing between us would be easy whether it was friendship or this because nothing about either one of us is easy. I'm not expecting or even asking you to say it back to me. I think all I'm asking is for you to accept it."

"Accept what? That you've chosen to believe I'm the best you can do?"

"What is going on here?" Emma demands, stepping closer again, near enough so that she can feel Regina's warmth. "Where is this coming from?"

"Where is what coming from?"

"This…hatred of yourself."

"It's never gone away, dear."

"Is this about the nightmares that you've been having?"

Regina pauses for a moment, clearly conflicted about admitting the truth, but finally because they really have come so far, and she really does trust this woman more than anyone in this world or any other, she says, "Yes."

Emma lets out a soft sigh and it might be relief or it might be sadness at having her fears confirmed. Either way, she reaches out for Regina's hands and pulls them into hers, squeezing them in a way that reminds the former queen of their time at the beach house. "Then talk to me. We've been through so much together. There's nothing that you can't tell me, okay?"

"I wish that that were true."

"Regina, please. Please."

"Maybe…maybe we should take a time out," Regina suggests weakly.

"That's not going to happen," Emma replies immediately, fiercely.

"I –"

"I get it, okay? You're panicking because I jumped the gun. You weren't ready, and I should have known that but you have to understand that even after all we've talked about and shared, after all the times you've let me touch you, you still don't always let even me see you when your walls are down, and God, Regina, you are so ridiculously beautiful when you're not fighting the world, and you're just allowing yourself to be happy. So yeah, maybe I shouldn't have said it, but I'm not sorry I did because I meant it."

"I need you to leave," Regina says softly before turning away from Emma and facing the window that opens up to the backyard of the mansion.

"Okay. Okay. But we're going to talk about this later because that's what we do now. If we have to go back to beach house rules, then that's what we do. I'll bring some wine over tonight, and we'll sit out on the porch and we talk and we tell each other stories and figure things out together."

"Emma-"

"'I'm going to go now and give you your space, okay?" Emma says as she leans in and pressing a kiss to Regina's shoulder. "But I will be back. After my shift, we're going to continue this. Henry can crash with my parents for another night, and we are going to come to an understanding about this."

She waits for just a moment – holds in place for an answer she knows isn't coming – and then reluctantly steps away from her lover and turns and walks towards the front room of the mansion. She casts one glance back as she laces up her boots, but then lifts her head high, and pulls the door open.

It's just as she's stepping outside that she hears the sound of Regina's high heels coming towards her, moving rapidly, frantically and almost urgently.

"Wait," she hears, Regina's voice low and throaty. Emma feels a soft hand settle on her forearm, and then she's getting roughly turned around and Regina is kissing her hard, seemingly unaware – or perhaps uncaring - of the fact that they're standing out on the porch in the middle of the morning where anyone who is simply passing by the mansion could see them.

After six months of kissing and making love to Regina, Emma's gotten used to the passion that this woman exhibits when she allows herself to, but there's something explosive about this kiss. It's needy and desperate and completely wanting, and though Regina can't possibly put the jumbled and confusing and frightening things that she might want to say into words, she manages to express those sentiments just fine with her soft lips and hands.

"Promise me you'll come back," Regina whispers once they break apart. It occurs to Emma that even though the kiss has ended, they're still wrapped tightly together, practically holding each other. "Don't give up on me."

"I promise," Emma assures her. "Try not to lose faith in me."

"I promise I'll try."

"Good enough," Emma chuckles and then leans forward and presses her forehead against Regina's. "You're stuck with me," she says, her eyes closing for just a moment before she reluctantly straightens up again.

"Then do as you said you would, dear, and bring wine. Choose well."

"Of course." After a beat, she asks, "Do you need me to stay? I can call in."

"I'm all right for now," Regina assures her. "Go to work. Let me have some time to remember who I've become and who I want to be. Let me have some time to figure out how to tell you a story that you won't want to hear, but I think you need to hear, anyway."

"I can handle it," Emma tells her, her thumb rubbing against the former queen's soft lips. When Regina closes her eyes, she leans in. "I know who you are. And I can handle both sides of you – the Evil Queen and Regina. "

"You're a damned fool," Regina murmurs, her eyes opening and tears glistening.

"Yes. And I still love you. Get used to hearing it, Your Majesty." And with that said, she leans in and gently kisses Regina, trying to say as much to the former queen with this kiss as Regina had managed to say to her with hers.

When she separates from Regina – with a light kiss to her nose – she chuckles and then steps back, motioning to the porch almost lazily. "I like kissing you out here," she comments. "We should do it more often."

"Go pretend you have a job that's useful, Sheriff."

Emma rolls her eyes, offers up one last affectionate smile, and then makes her way down the walk towards her car, feeling both lighter and heavier.

Lighter because she'd managed to crack the ice that'd been forming around Regina's heart once more; she had again managed to push away the darkness that had tried so desperately to feed on the former queen's soul.

But she also feels heavier because that darkness is still hanging over Regina like she's some kind of meal for it, and the more afraid she is, the more she hates herself, the more likely she is to let it in if only for just a little taste.

Emma sets her shoulders and steels her resolve.

Because this crazy love story of theirs? The one about a broken Savior and a fallen Queen tumbling forward together? Well it's damn well going to end with happily ever after.

***** *****

"Good morning," Snow says, smiling brightly at her daughter when she sees the blonde enter Granny's. Then, slightly scolding. "You're late."

"I know," Emma admits as she sits down. "Kind of a rough morning."

Snow's eyebrow lifts. "Is everything all right?" she asks. What she means to ask is whether or not Regina has fallen off the magical wagon again, but she holds her tongue because this friendship that has formed between Emma and her former stepmother clearly means a lot to her daughter, and the last thing Snow wants to do is create distance that doesn't need to be there.

She wants to reconnect with her daughter so if that means accepting that Regina and Emma are friends, well she thinks that she can do that.

No matter how much she'd prefer Emma to stay far away from Regina.

The reality is, because they share Henry, that's not really possible, anyway.

And for Henry, this friendship of theirs is a good thing. So she smiles as much as she can, and patiently waits for Emma's response.

"Yeah, everything is fine. How as the kid last night?"

"Perfect," Snow answers.

"Cool. Think you can handle one more night with him?"

"Of course, but is there any chance that you will tell me why?"

"Regina needs a friend," Emma answers with a shrug of her shoulders.

Snow nods her head slowly. "You're a good friend."

Emma sighs because sometimes she gets the feeling that Snow is trying to convince herself that that's all she and Regina are. Not that she thinks her mother suspects the truth – she certainly doesn't because Snow wouldn't be able to resist speaking out against it – but she has to know that it's more than just drinking buddies or something casual like that. "So is she."

"I didn't mean –"

"I know," Emma nods. "And, look, I know that this…friendship between me and Regina is all kinds of weird for you, but everything is good, okay?"

"Okay," Snow agrees, though it's clear her doubts remain. "Then how about we order breakfast; your father was saying something about reorganizing your filing system and well, I wouldn't let him do that if I were you."

Emma groans. "Maybe I should get it to go."

"Not a chance," Snow replies with a large warm smile. "You may need to be Regina's friend tonight, but you're my daughter this morning. Okay?"

Emma laughs. "Okay."

***** *****

She's walking towards the sheriff's station when she sees him. He's standing right at the mouth of the alley she's crossing through, his boots and cuffs wet, and he's staring at her with something that looks a lot like rage.

"Greg," she greets warily, wondering why it is that it seems like he's been waiting for her here. It's no secret that she takes this route to work after her three mornings a week breakfast with her mother, but this is still strange.

She has no relationship with this man, and doesn't really want one.

Especially if he's thinking of asking her out.

Unfortunately, that's not what's on his mind.

"I don't get it," he says, stepping towards her. One of his hands is in his pocket, but he's gesturing at her with the other one. "I don't understand."

"Don't understand what?"

"How you could love her."

"What?"

"How can you love a monster?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," Emma replies, her hand reaching behind her back to feel for her service pistol. She curses Regina's refusal to allow the gun in the house with Henry, which means that it's in a drawer at the station instead in her jeans where it might be able to help her now.

"I saw you one the porch with Regina," he hisses at her. "I heard what you said to her. I heard you tell her that you love her. I saw you kissing her."

Emma holds up her hands to try to calm him. "Right. Okay. Look –"

"No, you look. It was one thing when you were just fucking her because I get it; sometimes we like to touch dirty things. You're a lot like me –"

"I'm nothing like you," she retorts, her face reddening with anger.

He ignores her. "We're both orphans who grew up alone and broken. We both got thrown out more than we got brought in." He nods his head when he says this. "And we both ended up that way because of Regina."

"You don't know what you're talking about."

"Oh, but I do, Emma. I know who Regina really is. I know that she's the Evil Queen. This make-believe little hellhole may have tried to hide itself behind the façade of being a sleepy little coastal town, but I know everything about it. You see, I was here the day that it appeared out of thin air. Do you know what happened to me thanks to that day? Has your lover ever told you?" He spits out the word "lover" likes it's some kind of horrible curse word.

"How do you know that she's my lover?" Emma snaps back.

"That's all you care about?"

"How do you know?"

"I've been watching her. Every moment of every day. Like the song, you know? I see everything that she does. Every time she tries to pretend she's normal by buying peas, I see it. And every time she thinks that she can talk away her sins with Dr. Hopper, I'm aware of it." He smiles when he says this, the expression twisted and so full of hatred and fury that it chills Emma.

"Why? Why do you care –"

"Because she owes me her life for what she took from me, and I mean to take it from her." He takes another step towards her, and Emma tenses like she's preparing for him to suddenly attack her. She figures that though he's somewhat taller than her, she should be able to take him down.

Because he's soft and angry, and those are easy to exploit vulnerabilities.

"What did she take?"

"My father. She killed him and made me an orphan. Just like you."

"I'm not an orphan."

"For twenty-eight years you were. So I'll ask again, how can you love her?"

"I just do, and that's my business and not yours."

"That's where you're wrong, Emma; everything about the Queen is my business." He shakes his head like he can't quite believe that he's having this conversation. "She's an animal who needs to be put down."

"She's not who she was thirty years ago."

"I don't care."

"You don't have to," Emma says. "You have every right to your –"

"Don't patronize me!"

"I'm not," the sheriff assures him. "I'm just…" She stops abruptly, deciding to change her approach. "I'm not going to let you hurt her so if that's what you're planning, you need to walk away and leave Storybrooke because I will defend her to the death, and I'm not going to be the one dying."

"I'm not just planning it," he grins, taking yet another step towards her.

"Greg –"

"Owen. That's my name. Owen Flynn. That's who I used to be, anyway. Before she robbed me of last bit of family. Like she did you only apparently you don't care anymore because you're sharing her bed. How lucky for her."

She hears very little of his rant, though, because yeah, she's heard Regina calling out Owen's name in her sleep more than a few times. Screaming it.

"Owen, you don't want her blood on your hands," she says softly.

"You're wrong; I want to see her blood all over my hands."

"That's not going to happen."

"That's where you're wrong, Emma. I kept thinking that this was just some fling to rebel against mommy and daddy and that you were hate-fucking the queen and so I was waiting, biding my time because I knew eventually you'd leave her, but then I saw you this morning, and she looked happy with you."

"She is happy with me."

"She doesn't have the right to be happy. Not if I don't."

"You do –"

"No! You don't know what I've been through! You don't know how many years I spent trying to find my father and then trying to find her."

"I'm sorry for you, but I'm not going to let you hurt her."

"Because your love for her means more than my hatred for her does?"

"Even if it didn't, I still wouldn't let you hurt her."

"Such the hero," he sneers. "I bet you even think you can save her soul."

"It's not about being a hero, it's about knowing that vengeance only leads to emptiness. That woman that I love, she's exhibits A-Z of that, Owen."

"I'm already empty, and I will make her pay for what she did."

"Not while I'm alive."

"Then I guess you won't be," he snarls. "Just know that when you're taking your last breath, it'll because of your love for a undeserving monster."

She'll think later – when she's actually able to think again – that she should have seen the attack coming because one of his hands has been in his pocket the whole time that he's been screaming at her, but she doesn't. Maybe it's the heavy breakfast or maybe it's her underestimating him and assuming him for just a harmless but angry man, but either way, she finds herself completely blindsided by the feel of the Taser getting pushed against her neck when he surges towards her. She lifts up her right hand to try to shove him away, but then there's electricity pouring through her.

She cries out in pain as the surge continues, and her eyes roll back as she tumbles to the dirty ground, but consciousness doesn't steal her away.

No, that would be merciful.

What follows – the rage she feels in Owen's fists and feet as he pummels her – is anything but merciful. She hears him screaming at her, but the words are just sounds. Every now and again, she thinks she can hear him yell Regina's name, but eventually, it all just blurs together.

She can't move, can't fight back, can't resist.

She can only let him end her, hot salty tears running down her cheeks and mixing with her blood as he continues to strike her.

She feels his hot breath on her cheek as he leans over her, as he says something that she thinks is probably meant to be threatening, but it's the madness in his blue eyes that tells her that he's planning to kill her within the next five minutes.

Her last thoughts as everything finally fades away (first into shades of red, and then into gray and black) aren't of the monster that Owen claims Regina to be (she thinks that refusing to let him win that battle is something of a pyrrhic victory) but of the red wine that she'd planned to buy for the night ahead.

Regina had promised her a story.

She wonders if this was to be the story.

Apparently, she knows it already.

 

**TBC…**


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: As always, thank you.
> 
> Warnings: Salty sanguage, mild Snow assery, and lots and lots of talking. Oh and some gut-wrenching emotional stuff. Cheers.

"I need help!" Ruby Lucas screams as she kicks the doors leading into the Emergency Room open. Her boots – wet with dirty rainwater from the filty alley that she had been in just minutes earlier - click loudly as she walks down the over-polished hallway, her arms weighted down with the unconscious and badly beaten form of the town's sheriff. Blood-reddened blonde hair spills every which way, but the first thing that the man who had once been Dr. Frankenstein notices is that the werewolf girl is somehow managing to carry Emma with a kind of unsettling ease.

The next thing he notices, though, is the bright red blood that is dripping down off of Ruby and onto the usually very clean floor of the hospital.

Blood that a quick visual inspection tells him doesn't belong to Ruby.

"Victor, please," she whispers, her dark eyes so big and wide, and he's suddenly - and rather uncomfortably - reminded of a story from this world that involves Ruby – or rather her real identity as Little Red Riding Hood - being not the vicious wolf but rather a clever little girl.

He shakes this away because now is neither time nor the place to think of the absurdities of the world that Regina had years ago brought them to.

"What happened to her?" he demands as he snaps his fingers at two of the nurses, and then reaches out for a gurney and pulls it in front of Ruby. He gestures for her to lay Emma's body down upon it. "Gently," he urges.

He needn't have bothered; Ruby, who if she was a normal girl wouldn't be nearly strong enough to easily carry a fully grown and strong woman like Emma in her arms, sets her down on the gurney with so much gentleness that it's almost touching. Or at least it would be if Emma didn't look as though someone had rather violently used her body as a punching bag.

"He was going to kill her," Ruby says, her hand reaching out to push hair away from Emma's temple before she pulls back and forces her hands together in order to stop herself from touching Emma again. It's almost like she's afraid that this might be the last chance she has to do this. "I could smell blood and I heard screaming, and then I saw him over her hitting her."

"You saw who did this?" Victor asks as he starts to wheel the gurney down towards the operating room, both of his nurses keeping step with him.

"Yeah. Greg Mendell."

"The outsider I saved from dying? Why would he want to hurt Emma?"

"I don't know," Ruby admits. "And he took off when he saw me. I don't know why he did this, and for the moment I don't actually care. Victor –"

"She's going to be fine," he assures her, hoping for once that his trademark confidence and arrogance are considered good things for him to have. "You should call her parents; they'll want to be here for her when she wakes up."

"You're right." She blinks slowly, like she's in shock, and he thinks that she probably is; she's been through a whole lot in her life, but Emma is her god-daughter, and one of her best friends and seeing her like this terrifies her.

And then, of course, there's also the blood. So very much of it everywhere.

"Ruby," he says as he places his hand on the door. "Change clothes; you can find some scrubs in the closet. It's not good for you to have her blood all over you especially with you in the state you are." He offers her a thin smile, and thinks about their conversations about the monsters that they are.

"Thank you," she whispers as she looks down at her blood-covered clothes.

He nods his head, and then disappears into the operating room.

She tries not to hear the doors slam shut.

And she tries not to think about the haunting visual of Emma sprawled out on the dirty floor of the alley, her unconscious body curled into a tight ball as a man that should have no reason to hate the sheriff had continued to attack her with his fists and hands as though she were his mortal enemy.

She fails.

 

 

 

 

***** *****

"Tell me again," David insists, his hands settled anxiously on his hips. His forehead is creased, and his blue eyes are wide and frightened. He's heard this story – the one of how Ruby had stumbled upon Greg attacking his daughter in the middle of the alley leading the station – several times already, but he keeps thinking that maybe there's something he's missing.

Something that will explain why anyone would go after Emma.

"David, me telling you what I saw twenty or even fifty more times won't change what happened to Emma," Ruby whispers. The three of them – Ruby, David and Snow - are in the middle of the Waiting Room. Though they'd considered picking him up, for now, Henry is still at school.

"I know," David agrees. "But I don't understand."

"You think I do? I don't know why he was hitting her. She was out cold when I got there. The only reason I knew she was there at all is because I heard a scream, and then I smelled blood and fear. God, if I hadn't –"

"But you did. You listened and you followed your instincts," Snow says immediately. She reaches out and grabs Ruby's hands and squeezes them. "And because of that, you probably saved our daughter's life."

"I hope so."

"She's right; you definitely saved her life," a voice says from behind them. They look up to see Whale walking towards them, looking tired but smiling slightly. "If you hadn't interrupted when you…well, she couldn't have taken much more but you did so…she's going to be in a lot of pain for a good long while, but I firmly believe that she's going to make a full recovery."

"You're sure?" David demands.

"I'm sure," Whale assures them. "Your daughter is a very smart woman, and though she wasn't able to defend herself due to what appears to be a Taser mark, she did manage to protect her head so almost all of the damage that was done was done to bone and muscle. Most of her ribs are broken, and there's quite a few other fractures and tears, but none of her wounds are life-threatening as long as there are no unexpected complications."

Snow lets out a breath. "So she's going to live is what you're saying?"

"That's exactly what I'm saying."

"Can we see her?" David asks.

"Not yet; we need to clean her up first, but as soon as we do, I think we can accommodate a visitor or two. I warn you, though, she's going to be heavily sedated and medicated, and is unlikely to be responsive or communicative."

"I don't care," Snow tells him. "We don't care. We just need to see her."

"Understood. I'll let you know as soon as you can."

"Thank you, Whale," David says.

"Glad to help." He glances over at Ruby, takes in her blue scrubs, and then nods his head at her, smiles that strange smile of his again, and leaves.

"I can pick up Henry and bring him here," Ruby offers after a moment.

"No, not yet," David replies. "We need to know what to tell him before we do, and just saying that his mom is going to be hurt won't be enough. He's going to want some answers, and we need to figure out what we can say."

"We should get some help from Regina with that," Snow suggests. There's a kind of strange caution to her voice, a sign of her wariness over the clearly growing but not quite defined relationship (at least to her) between her daughter and her former stepmother. She wishes that she understood it better, but perhaps now isn't the time for such thoughts; all that matters now is Emma. "Which means we need to get her here."

"We need to do that anyway," David states, frowning a bit as he thinks about conversations he'd had with Emma while she and Regina had been out of town. Back then, he'd resisted and even protested the growing friendship out of fear of what it might mean. Now, he accepts it because it seems to have calmed the former queen down and perhaps even made her happy. "She'd want to be here, and I think after all they went through at the beach house – whatever it was – Emma would want her here as well."

"Of course," Snow says shortly, her tone tight.

"Guys, tell me what to do," Ruby urges. "I need to do something."

"Find us Mendell," David says, his jaw tightening. "He's out there somewhere, probably hiding because he knows we're coming for him."

"And if I find him?"

"Don't confront him. Call me, and we'll figure out what to do next."

"Okay," she replies. "I'll be in touch and –"

"Emma is going to be fine," Snow assures her. "But we will let you know when she wakes up, and when we get the chance to talk to her. I promise."

Ruby offers up the best smile she has within her – a sad miserable kind of thing that leaves no doubt in Snow's mind of exactly what Ruby is seeing – and then turns and leaves, headed towards the outside of the hospital.

"Now what?" David asks.

"I'll stay here and wait for Emma to wake up. Why don't you go and pick up Regina and bring her back? She should be at her house; my understanding from Emma is that she typically works from home on Mondays and Fridays."

"She's her friend, Snow," David reminds his wife. "We may not like it, but –"

"I know," Snow allows, but then bites the inside of her cheek to stop herself from saying more than that. She's been watching her daughter for months, and though she hasn't seen Emma and Regina together often, little things that Henry has said or the comfort level that Neal seems to have with both women combined with the fact that he has completely backed off of trying to get Emma to give him another chance at them, well all of those things create a picture in her mind that she absolutely doesn't want to consider.

And yet sometimes, she has to do that because when Emma tells her that she's going to crash at the mansion so she can hang out with Henry, it's quite clear to Snow that she actually means to spend time with Regina, too.

"Are you sure you're going to be okay by –"

"By myself? David, honey, you might be Prince Charming, but I can still hold my own. If Greg comes back here, I'll make sure he's the next one that Dr. Whale is operating on." Her voice is cold, and leaves no room for doubt.

"Just please be careful, Snow. Emma's tougher than both of us, and –"

"I know, You be careful, too, okay?"

He tilts his head in something that looks like bemusement. "Regina has actually been pretty well behaved since she got back. She and I even managed to have something that resembled a civil conversation last week."

"She's still Regina."

"I know, but –"

"Like you said, David, she's Emma's friend. Or perhaps more importantly, Emma is her friend and we both know how few of those Regina has outside of Henry. Greg Mendell just attacked Emma for reasons that we can only guess about, and you know what? We can say a lot of ugly things about Regina, but the one thing we can't say is that she's disloyal to those she cares for. I don't think she's going to take well to someone hurting Emma."

"I'm not taking well to it," David admits. Then, "Should we contact Neal?"

"We should. He'd want to be here for Henry. I'll give him a call; if we're lucky, he can catch a flight to and be here tonight. For now, though –"

"Get Regina. Right." David smiles gently at his wife, though his heart isn't quite in the gesture because it's hard to feel his typical brand of optimism with Emma passed out on a hospital bed. It's hard to feel much besides anger and fear as he thinks about Mendell attacking and hurting Emma.

But he needs to because he can see the rage simmering in Snow's dark with emotion green eyes, and he knows that he'll see it in Regina's eyes as well.

Someone has to try to stay in control.

So for as long as he's able to, he vows that he'll be the one to do so.

 

 

 

 

***** *****

She's sitting behind the oversized desk in her home office dressed in a loose pair of almost casual beige slacks and a color-faded black ribbed sweater. It's probably – definitely - not an ensemble that she would have dared to wear if she'd gone in to City Hall for the day, but around the house, she's slowly but surely allowing (or at least trying to allow) herself to accept that it's okay to be a bit more at ease. Both Henry and Emma seem to appreciate the effort, and even she has to admit that it's rather nice not to have to spend hours getting presentable especially when no one will actually see it.

After all, it's not like anyone ever comes to see her here.

Not that she's been the ghost that she'd been right after the curse had broken over the last six months, but generally when she leaves the house for anything besides town business, she's with Henry or Emma or Archie.

The truth is, no one in Storybrooke is all that interested in seeing her, and she really doesn't have much interested in seeing them, either. Which is why it's such a surprise when she hears a hard almost urgent knock on her door.

Frowning, Regina stands up and looks around for her heels. She remembers after a few seconds that she hadn't even bothered to remove them from the closet because she hadn't anticipated needing to wear them today. Her schedule had been mercifully free of meetings or appointments and so that had promised her a day of solitude meant to help her figure things out.

Things such as how to tell Emma about her dreams and why the sheriff had quite suddenly dropped the declaration of love on her that she had. A declaration that she's still having a hard time working her head around if for no other reason than it makes her wonder about her own feelings for the hard-headed woman.

Hoping that it's just Emma having forgotten her house keys again (or maybe Henry) but somehow knowing deep in her gut that this is something more than that – worse than that, she fears – she makes her way to the door just as the knocking starts again. She pulls it open and looks back at David.

"Charming," she drawls, and she means both him and his manners. He's simply staring at her, like he's expecting her to let him into her house.

"Regina," he says, and it's the serious tone of his voice that stops her from replying with anything sharp. She tries to think what could be causing such a reaction – such worry – from him, and really there are only three people.

"Henry," she whispers, her heart plummeting and her skin turning cold.

"No. Henry…he's fine. It's –"

"Emma," she breathes. She blinks, composes herself, and then asks in a voice so devoid of emotion that he knows what she's expecting. "Is she –"

"She's alive," he assures her. "Just badly injured."

Regina allows for a breath of relief, and then she's yanking the door open and allowing him entrance into her house. She leads him up the stairs and it's the strangest thing ever because he's never been up here, but he just follows after her as she strides into her bedroom and then into her walk-in closet. From inside, she asks in a deceptively neutral voice that makes him think she's trying to be hopeful about this, "Was it a car accident? I've been telling her forever that she needs to trade the Bug in for an adult vehicle."

"No, she was attacked," David replies, standing awkwardly in the middle of her room. The bed has been made, and everything looks somewhat orderly, but then his eyes fall upon a Red Sox sweatshirt messily folded up on top of the dresser. It's too big to belong to Henry, and he's pretty sure that Regina would never buy something like that for herself which suggests that -

"By whom, David?" Regina growls out, suddenly in his personal space. He sees that her eyes are already glowing bright purple and he thinks about how the sweatshirt isn't downstairs waiting for Emma to pick it up after perhaps Regina had simply washed it for her. No, it's up here in Regina's bedroom like it's about to be put away into a drawer that belongs to Emma.

"Greg Mendell," he says quietly. "And no, we have no idea why he did it."

She shakes her head, and steps back from him, the purple momentarily fading as her keen mind kicks in. She scowls as she starts pacing the room, her heels now in her hand. "That makes no sense. Just yesterday he was asking me if I thought Emma was open to him asking her for a date."

"What did you say to that?" David queries. It's probably the wrong question because it's unlikely to make a difference, but curiosity – and that sweatshirt – overtakes him, and so he watches her carefully, studying her expressions.

She looks at him like he's grown two heads. "I don't remember," she replies, and it's clear to him that she's lying to him. "Besides, what does that matter unless you think he attacked her for turning him down for a date?"

"Maybe he did," David suggests. Then, shrugging "But I kind of doubt it."

"Why?"

"He used his hands and feet on her, and broke almost every single one of her ribs in the attack That's a bit of overkill for a simple date rejection."

She gasps loudly, and if David had actually doubted before that there might be more than just simple friendship going on between Emma and Regina, then her expression now - one of distraught horror – tells the tale.

It's quite clear to him that she's desperately afraid for Emma right now.

"Put your shoes on," David says softly. "Emma might wake up tonight, and she'll probably want to see you if she does." He looks right at Regina when he says this, and the piercing blue in his eyes tells her that he knows.

And then she sees him looking at the sweatshirt again. It occurs to her that Emma must have picked it up from the floor this morning, folding it with her typical kind of messiness. That she'd even tried to make it neat, though, well that had been her way of trying to show respect to Regina for the things that she still needs to keep the same as everything else around her changes.

All to say, Emma had tried.

She nods her head slowly almost numbly, all the while wondering when it is that she had stopped feeling like a cool and collected queen hiding behind unbelievably tall but still expertly constructed walls and started feeling like a woman who is entirely too open and exposed. If even a man as simple as David Nolan can see right through her simply because of a sweatshirt, then she truly is bare for all. And Emma, well Emma is completely to blame.

She feels David's hand on her forearm, and it's so gentle and kind, and she thinks about the many ways that Emma is like her father, and they almost make her want to pull away from him, but then he's meeting her eyes again, and she wonders if maybe it wouldn't be nice for once to share her pain and fear with others who would understand instead of dealing with it all alone.

Then again, that means sharing her feelings about Emma with Snow White.

And that's something she just doesn't think that she can do.

Because despite everything – despite their non-aggression pact/truce – she and Snow still aren't on what one would rationally call good terms. They haven't spoken more than a few worthless words to each other since the return to Storybrooke, and they've both been fine with this arrangement.

Possibly because the former queen really has no interest in hearing Snow bleat out some kind of pathetic defense of her decision to use her former stepmother to murder her own mother, but mostly because Regina fears an honest and heartfelt apology even more than a weak explanation.

She moves away from David slowly, leans down and puts her heels on, and then says in a low voice that's again devoid of emotion, "Let's go."

 

 

 

 

***** *****

His understanding of just how afraid she is intensifies when she doesn't complain at all about driving in his truck with him. It's hardly dirty, but it's not quite clean, either. She says not a word, though, simply belts herself in and stares out through the windshield at the brisk but bright afternoon.

He's about to say something, perhaps offer her some cloying sentiment about how everything will be just fine and there's nothing to worry about because Emma is strong and nothing can really hurt her, but then his cell rings, and he manages to pull his eyes away from Regina long enough to answer it. "Ruby?" he says after a glance at the LCD screen of his phone.

"David, you need to get over to the Inn," she says. "You need to see this."

"This?"

"Greg Mendell's room. I'm in it now and…well, you need to be here.

"Cope that, Rubes; we're on our way."

"You and Snow?"

"Me and Regina," he answers, glancing over at Regina who is watching him with a conflicting mixture of curiosity, frustration, impatience and irritation.

"Oh. Maybe that's not a good idea."

"Why?"

"David, I think he attacked Emma because of her."

"Why am I not surprised?" he growls. His eyes narrow as he gazes over at Regina, almost daring her to lie to him even though that's not completely fair because she can't hear the conversation that he's having with Ruby.

"There's something else," Ruby says gently. "Something about Regina and Emma that maybe you didn't need to know and maybe you don't want to know it, but you're about to so you should probably prepare yourself."

"They're together," he says, still looking at Regina. He sees the color drain from her face just before she turns away from him so she can recollect herself, and if he gets some kind of pleasure out of that, it's muted because first, he's realizing that his daughter is with the Evil Queen and second, it occurs to him that the Evil Queen just might be in love with his daughter.

"You got it," Ruby replies.

"Yeah, I guess I do."

 

 

 

 

***** *****

He brings Regina with him to the Inn anyway.

Mostly because if Greg is after Regina for whatever reason, then she might be able to answer a few questions, and perhaps understanding that the attack on Emma had been because of some unknown vendetta that Mendell has against her instead of an issue with Emma might loosen her tongue and stop whatever lies she might otherwise be willing and ready to tell.

He's expecting Regina to be angry about whatever they find, but then he's pushing the door open to the room that Greg has been staying in for almost eight months, and anger is not what he is feeling, and from the surprised and almost scared expression on Regina's face as she scans the picture plastered walls, he's guessing that it's not her dominant feeling, either.

"Gods," she whispers as her eyes take in photo after photo of her upon the walls. Most of the photos are in color but a few are in black and white or rather creepy sepia tones. Some of them show her alone within her house or wandering around town, but the vast majority of them include either Emma or Henry. And some, well some of them are very personal in nature, as well as very graphic in detail and they're also quite telling of a relationship that isn't supposed to exist between a Queen and the Savior who'd beaten her.

So, that confirms that, David thinks as he watches Regina close her eyes.

For her part, she has always known that eventually her relationship with Emma – if it had managed to last long enough – would be revealed, and then they would have to deal with the disappointment of all of her loved ones who strongly believe that the sheriff can (she can, of course) do better.

She hadn't expected that outing to go quite like this.

She finally opens her eyes and looks over at David, watches the way his own eyes are flicking around the room. To his credit, he's desperately trying not to dwell on the pictures of his daughter naked, but it seems as though he can't manage to pull away from staring at the ones of the two of them kissing each other, Emma's arms wrapped tightly around Regina's waist.

Which reminds her…

She looks around the room almost frantically.

"What are you looking for?" Ruby asks, her eyes keen and understanding in a way that reminds Regina why she's always secretly liked this girl more than many of the others in this town. She'd wondered for a long while if Ruby could smell either she or Emma on the other, and now she wonders this again. Perhaps Ruby had, and had just chosen to keep her mouth shut.

If so, she supposes she owes Ruby a debt of gratitude for the quiet time she'd allowed them. Not that she plans to bring that up at the moment.

"A camera. These are all developed, but…if his issue is with me – and I swear that I have no idea why he's after me; that I know of, I've never met that man before he came to Storybrooke – then I think he may have seen something that happened between me and Emma this morning."

"There," David says, pointing. And true enough, there's an expensive long-range digital camera sitting on the dresser. He strides over to it, and turns it on, a bright screen illuminating with options. He quickly flips through the menus until he finds the way offering to show pictures still on the memory card. "Want to tell me what I'm about to see?" he suggests, his voice low.

"Your daughter being a damned fool," Regina replies, her face contorting into something pained and so very damaged and hurt. "Is there video?"

"Yeah. Pictures and video," he replies as he forwards through several photos of Regina and Emma standing on the front porch of the former queen's house, kissing each other like there just might not be a tomorrow for either one of them. There's absolutely no doubt in David's mind that what he's seeing here is something that means a whole lot to both of these women; this isn't an affair of passion and sex, but rather one of the heart.

"Delete it," Regina pleads as she steps towards him. Perhaps the word pleads is too much, David thinks, because queens never do, but still, she looks absolutely insistent about this, and it makes him tilt his head.

"Regina –"

"Or at least watch it later. When I'm not around to see it. Please."

He's already decided to do as asked, but it seems like a good opportunity for leverage so he says, "Fine. But only if you tell me everything you know. What did you really tell Greg when he asked you about asking Emma out?"

Regina scowls at the question. "I told him that she was seeing someone."

"That's it?"

"Yes. Until this moment, I was under the mistaken belief that no one besides my son and his father knew of my…new relationship with Emma."

"Neal knows?"

"He does."

"All right, you don't want me to watch the video, then out of respect for you and Emma, I won't but, but Regina, I need you to tell me the truth about what happened this morning," David prompts. "Because I'm not understanding this at all. There are a dozen other pictures of the two of you kissing and doing…more than that. What's so important about today?"

"She told me that she loved me," Regina says simply, her voice suddenly stripped of emotion as she prepares herself for one of them to laugh to her at the absurdity of her claim. Or even worse than that, to do as she'd told Archie that she expects them to do and suggest coercion by witchcraft.

But neither Ruby nor David actually does that.

They simply look at her, both of them shocked but somehow not surprised.

Finally, David says in a low tired sounding voice, "Okay."

"Okay?" Regina repeats, wishing desperately that she could find a way back to the strength that usually protects her from emotional moments like this one. The part of her that is dark and ugly wants to blame Emma and Henry and Archie for how weak she feels right now, but she simply can't.

Because that ability to feel is what had brought Emma and Henry to her.

"Now's not the time to doubt what my daughter feels for you. I'm not sure there is a time no matter how much I might not like whom she chose to feel it for. That's her right and…well, it just doesn't matter. All that does is figuring out why he did it, and finding him before he goes back for her."

Regina's head snaps up. "You think that he will?"

"Depends on why he attacked her to begin with. If he's trying to take someone away from you, then he very well might. He meant to kill her today," David notes, glancing over at Ruby who nods her confirmation.

"Then we need to be at the hospital with her," Regina snaps out, her once again purple eyes wide and frantic and so very terribly afraid.

"I agree. Rubes, keep looking for Mendell."

"I will," she assures him.

"As for you," David says, turning towards Regina. "I need you to calm –"

"No," Regina snaps out, for the moment disinterested in both Ruby's search for Mendell and David's ridiculous need to keep her magic under control. All she cares about is getting to Emma, and ensuring that she's safe from harm.

Safe from the demons of her lover's broken and bloody past.

And so, before David can protest – and he would do so because it's been more than eight months since she's used any kind of magic – Regina grabs his hand, pulls him close, and then all they see is purple smoke swirling around them. It's thick and cloying and he coughs several times.

But then they're standing in front of a surprised Snow White.

Several miles from where they were.

"You used magic," Snow gasps, foregoing the greeting.

"Where is she?" Regina demands, ignoring the rather obvious statement.

To her credit, Snow adapts quickly to the change in subject and to the urgency in her former stepmother's voice. "They're moving her to a private room now," Snow says. "She's going to be in there…in here in this hospital for awhile. She's pretty badly hurt. He nearly beat her to death." Her eyes narrow then. "One of your skeletons nearly killed my daughter, Regina."

"And where the hell where you while he was doing that to her, Snow?" Regina snaps back as she steps towards her shocked mortal enemy. "I know that you have breakfast with her three times a week. Why weren't you with her this morning? Did you have something better to do than be with her?"

"What? I was. We…we did. She…Regina, she left to go to work."

"Regina," David soothes, and she considers melting his skin off of him.

"Shut up," she snaps. "Don't try to pacify me."

"I'm not," he insists. "But I am telling you that this doesn't help. Greg didn't attack Emma because Snow wasn't with her. He attacked her because–"

"Because of me," Regina finishes dully, stepping quickly away from Snow.

"You?" Snow demands, closing the space again. "What did you do?"

"Greg's been stalking Regina," David provides. "We found pictures of her all over his apartment that date back about six months or so, some even more. A few of them were rather…personal." He looks over at Regina and his eyes make it clear that he won't say anything about the nature of her relationship with his daughter unless Regina allows it. The reality is that the truth will come out soon, anyway, but for some reason or another, he's being kind enough to allow her a few minutes of not having to defend it.

Because where Prince Charming might reluctantly be willing to treat his almost thirty year old daughter like the grown adult that she is – one who is completely capable of making her own emotional choices – Snow is likely to be entirely blinded by the damaged past that she shares with Regina as well as her almost overwhelming fear of losing Emma once again.

"What did you do?" Snow asks again, her teeth gritting.

"I don't know," Regina admits. "But I will. Once I know that Emma is safe."

"She's safe. Because her family is here with her," Snow replies defiantly.

"Snow," David cautions, and it's like he's playing referee for them.

"What? What do you expect me to say, David? Emma befriends her against all common sense and what does she get for it? Hurt by someone who probably wanted to hurt Regina instead. And should have been allowed to."

"You don't mean that," David insists.

"Don't I?"

"You would be right if you did," Regina says suddenly, her voice unsteady in a way that stops Snow's quickly escalating anger almost cold.

"What?"

"I don't know what I did to Greg Mendell, but whatever it was, I should have been the one to pay for it, and not Emma." She shakes her head, the despair thick and overwhelming. "I warned her about this, but she wouldn't listen. For every way that she's not like you idiots, there are other ways that she's exactly like you two and believing in people who don't deserve it…"

She trails off and looks away from David and Snow, tears on her cheeks. For a moment, her face contorts to something awful and so very heartbroken. It's enough to make something inside of Snow ache more than it probably should considering the many wrongs that she and Regina have done to each other over the years. "I don't understand what's going on here," Snow states.

"Your daughter loves me, you silly girl," Regina snaps out. "She loves me because she just might be a bigger fool than you are, and she doesn't know how to walk away when she should. She loves me and she shouldn't."

"No." Snow looks over at David, hoping that he'll be denying Regina's words as well, but the expression on his face is so calm that she knows that he is already aware of all of this. "No," she says again. "She's your –"

"She's not related to me in anyway, Snow," Regina replies dully.

"Okay, but…but this isn't…what did you do to her? Did you-"

"Snow, stop," David says gently.

"David, no. This makes no sense."

"It makes a lot of sense," he counters, his voice still soft. "But even if it didn't, love isn't always rational. We both know that better than most."

"You've known?"

"I just found out today, and now we all know."

"And you're okay with this?"

"I didn't say that I was, but I'm not going to second guess Emma and who she has chosen to fall in love with. No matter who it is that she's chosen."

"This isn't right."

"Snow, for God's sake, do you think I wanted this?" Regina growls out.

"Yes. Yes, I think you probably did. What better way to get me back then –"

There's a loud crack as Regina's hand collides with Snow's cheek. "My feelings for your daughter have nothing to do with you," she hisses.

"Your feelings. So…so you feel the same way that she…that she does?"

Regina blinks, clearly not having anticipated that question. "I…"

She's saved from having to respond by the door swinging open and Whale emerging. His eyebrow lifts when he sees Regina, but he continues forward.

"She's awake," he says. "I don't know how considering how many drugs she's on, and she's admittedly not overly coherent, but she is conscious."

"I want to see her," Snow says immediately, already in motion as if to follow Whale back behind the doors that lead to where Emma is now recovering.

"Snow, maybe we should let Regina go first," David suggests.

She spins on him. "What? No. We're her family."

"And Regina is..." he pauses, glancing at Whale. "Let her go first."

"David."

"Snow."

"Enough of this," Regina snaps. Then to Whale, "Take me to her. Now."

He holds for a moment and their eyes meet with the understanding of their shared pasts – a time when he had helped to break her heart and her soul – and maybe he sees in her exactly what David had seen a few hours earlier because after a moment, he plasters on a smile and simply nods.

"This way," he says, his hand out as if to show her the way.

He's not one bit surprised to hear David and Snow following close behind.

Whale only allows Regina into the room, but he permits Snow and David to hover near the door, close enough so that they can hear almost everything that might be said between the White Knight and the once Evil Queen.

At first, nothing is said at all because even though Whale had assured them that Emma is awake, her eyes are closed and she's not moving at all.

Or perhaps it's just that her eyes are partially swollen shut.

Suffice it to say, Emma looks absolutely horrific. Her face is badly bruised and cut, and her overall color is decidedly paler than usual. She's wearing a hideously ugly hospital gown so it's impossible to see the bandages and other kinds of medical fix-alls that are beneath the thin fabric, but the startlingly white casts on both her left wrist and right legs are visible.

Painfully so.

The beep-beep-beep of the heart monitor isn't half as distracting as the sight of the IV dripping fluids and painkillers into Emma's veins, but together they present a visual that is just shy of terrifying for everyone.

Most of all for the woman who had woken up this morning wrapped tight in Emma's arms, and then – in a fit of near insanity - willingly crawled out of those same arms due to fear over Emma's mid-coital declaration of love.

Now, she'd give up just about anything that she could – aside from Henry, of course – to be able to turn back time and find a way to keep Emma at the house with her. The sheriff had offered to stay because she'd noticed how off-kilter Regina had been, but the former queen had asked her to leave.

She'd wanted space to deal with Emma's declaration of love and time to figure out how to let the sheriff in on a bit more of her damaged past.

And now there's this.

Guilt doesn't even begin to describe her feelings about all of this.

"Emma," she whispers, leaning forward.

One of the blonde's bruised eyes cracks halfway open, and Emma winces at even that small amount of movement, the painkillers quite clearly – and unfortunately - doing very little to help the fact that just about everything hurts and aches right now. "Hey," she says, sounding like she's laughing.

Which is utterly absurd, but it also wouldn't surprise Regina, either.

Very little surprises the former queen about her lover these days.

Regina takes a deep breath to steady herself, and then says, "How…how are you…" She shakes her head to stop herself from asking such an idiotic question. It's the expected one here, but she can plainly see with her own two eyes that Emma is in deep agony, and she won't force the blonde to tell a ridiculous lie simply because it's what Regina desperately wants and needs to hear right now. She won't be selfish for once simply to be it.

"I hurt," Emma admits, hearing the question, anyway. It's the honesty of her words that startles Regina because she really had been expecting Emma to downplay her pain. That she doesn't even try to do so says everything.

"I'm sorry," Regina tells her. "I'm so sorry."

"It's not your fault."

"It is; he attacked you because of me."

Emma blinks slowly, and for the briefest of moments, there's some kind of almost concrete recognition of her words, like she knows that what Regina is saying to her is accurate, but then her green eyes fog over with pain, and whatever thought she'd been grasping at is gone. Instead, she looks up at Regina and says in a voice that almost sounds drunk, "Hey, you're crying."

"You're hurt," Regina echoes, her right hand reaching out as if to touch Emma – to reassure herself that yes, Emma really is there – but she stops herself halfway, terrified of accidentally causing the blonde pain.

"I already said that," Emma reminds her. "But it's getting better now."

"No, Emma, the drugs are getting better," Regina notes with a small relieved smile, glancing up at the IV and watching the drip-drip-drip.

"Oh. That's good."

"Yes, it is. What it means is that you're going to rest again soon."

"Will you be here when I wake up?"

"We all will be, Emma; your parents are just outside of the room. They're next in line to see you, and they'll be here when you open your eyes."

"And you?"

"That depends. Will you keep your promise to me and come back to me?"

Emma chuckles lazily. "I told you that you're stuck with me, didn't I? It's going to take a whole lot more than a few broken bones to stop that."

Regina can't stop herself from letting out a rough sob at that. The idea that Emma thinks that her injuries are little more than what one might get in a rough bar fight upsets her more than she might care to admit. She doesn't know if it's just that Emma doesn't yet realize what's happened or if she's intentionally downplaying what had occurred, but either way, Regina can see the welts and cuts and the blinding whiteness of the casts, and it's too much because the words that keep going through her mind over and over again are the ones reminding her that Emma had been hurt because of her.

But she's not the only one responsible for this, she reminds herself.

Greg Mendell is, and he will account for this, she vows.

Even as she thinks this, she can feel the magic deep within her stirring around like a snake might slither around in its hole. Her magic has been held at bay for so long now, told that it's longer needed because it's host wanted something different, but now it can feel that it's about to be let free again.

Even the thought of this both frightens and excites the former queen.

"Hey, don't cry. It's okay," Emma mumbles as her blinks slow down.

"It is, dear," Regina confirms. "Because everyone who loves you is right here, and if they're not, they're on their way. No one is going to hurt you."

"Because you won't let them."

"Never again," the former queen promises. She leans forward, then, and presses a light kiss to Emma's forehead. They're going to have much to talk about later when Emma is conscious and aware, and it's entirely possibly that Emma won't be able to handle the idea that there could be others out there who would want to make her pay for her lover's sins as Greg had.

That – if this isn't - will likely be the end of things.

And Regina's not entirely sure that she would fight back against if it were because the reality has always been that Emma deserves better.

But for now, she just holds her lips against Emma's feverish skin, feeling the warmth there. She stays until Emma stills, having slipped into a deeply drugged sleep. It's only then does she slowly back away, her shoulders straightening and her jaw tightening. She knows that Snow and David are just outside the door, and they've already seen and heard entirely too much.

She won't let them see her weak and broken, a just barely held together emotional mess of a woman who can't stop herself from crying. She won't.

So she walks past them, her held high and her heart pounding painfully.

 

 

 

 

***** *****

Snow just can't let it go of her doubts, Regina realizes as she sees Snow stalking towards her; it's ironic, really, because they're here in this world instead of their own because Regina couldn't let go of her anger and hatred for the girl who had once been her stepdaughter, and now it seems that Snow is one who is desperate to follow her down the dark path of rage.

"What's your plan here, Regina? What are you trying to get out of this…relationship with Emma?" Snow demands as she exits from behind the doors that lead to the private rooms. David had stayed behind so as to spend some private time with their daughter, and that suddenly makes this already tense moment between the two women who have been enemies for so long even more so. Not that either one of them actually needs protection from David Nolan, but well, left to their own devices they have a bad habit of letting the things that they fight about get out of hand.

And there's so very much for them to fight about these terrible days.

Ugly and emotional thing such as forced motherhood, a twenty-eight year long parent-child separation, grotesque manipulation that had led to murder, broken promises that killed a stable boy and yes, now the fact that Emma is claiming to have fallen in love with the one person Snow hates.

This can't be happening, the princess tells herself. It simply can't.

This has to be a lie or some kind of manipulation or revenge because while she could believe that someone with as good of a heart as Emma has could see the best of Regina enough to unwisely fall in love with her, she can't wrap her mind around the idea of Regina being able to return it.

"You need to stop lying to yourself," Regina says coldly, bringing Snow back to their conversation. "Because I am a lot of things, dear, most of them truly hideous beyond words, but the one thing I am not is incapable of love."

Snow blinks because she hadn't thought that she'd said her words aloud.

But then Regina is staring right at her with the iciest of smiles, and that's all Snow needs to see to know that yes, she had voiced her thoughts.

"Answer my question," Snow demands. "What are you up to with Emma?"

"At the moment, I'm not up to anything besides perhaps thinking about finding myself a cup of coffee that isn't wretched. After that, I'm going to wait for Emma to wake up again so that I can be there for her if she needs me. And yes, Snow, in case you doubted it, my diabolical plan here really is to steal away your chance to offer Emma comfort by offering up my own."

Snow's mouth flops wide open for a moment, and it would be one of the most hilarious (and accurate) things that Regina has ever seen if not for the fact that they're arguing over Emma and she would absolutely hate that.

"Regina, you can't love her. You…you can't."

"But you know that I can, Snow, and that's what terrifies you."

"It does," Snow admits. "So do you?"

"That's between me and Emma."

"I'm her mother."

"Which doesn't give you the right to know everything about her."

"But it does give me the right to know who she's sharing her life with."

"Well, now you know."

"And now what I want to know is if she's loved as much as she loves."

"What answer do you want? The one that will make you feel better or –"

"I want the truth, Regina," Snow says as she steps towards Regina, her green eyes blazing with fierce intensity. "Do you love my daughter?"

Regina seems to suddenly wilt a bit, terrified of the implications of words that she spent most of the morning trying not to think about. She shakes her head, and very softly says, "Don't do this, Snow. Don't push."

"My God, Regina, you're afraid," Snow breathes.

Whatever softness had been there before slips away as Regina reacts to the words that that she's never accepted; revealing the truth about whatever fear she might or might not feel has never been an option. "I'm not. I'm –"

"You really are scared out of your mind, aren't you? You're afraid because you actually are completely in love with Emma," Snow states, her voice filled with a mixture of awe and disbelief. "How did you let this happen?"

"I didn't let it happen. It just…it doesn't matter." For a moment, her eyes look completely wild, and if Snow didn't know better, she'd almost think that some kind of switch had just been flipped in Regina's mind. Something that reminds her a lot of the past.

"Of course it matters."

"Why? Are you planning to accept my affair with Emma now? We both know that that's a joke, Snow, so please don't insult either of us by telling it."

"I think it's more than an affair, and I also think you're trying to piss me off."

"That's never been hard to do."

"No, but for now, my focus is on my daughter being safe and happy."

"Well, I obviously can't offer the first as even you can clearly see."

"And the second?"

Regina laughs suddenly, sounding almost crazed; it's enough to send a cold chill racing up Snow's spine as she's thrown back to the dark and terrible days that she'd spent hiding in the forest and trying to survive a woman that despite everything between them, she'd never really stopped loving.

Seemingly oblivious to the thoughts going through Snow's conflicted mind, Regina squares her shoulders and stares right at her, sneering as she says, "I'm not a good person, Snow, that's the one thing that we can agree upon. You should be happy, dear, because by the time all of this is over, your daughter will have abundant reason to believe the same thing that you do."

Snow's eyes narrow as she watches the woman that she has known for so long start to once again allow her crushing self-loathing in.

"Which is what?"

"That being with me is foolish and idiotic even for Emma; the idea that I could ever make her truly happy is completely absurd, and when this is all over, she'll understand that I will have simply made things easy for her and thus saved her months or perhaps even years of unnecessary heartache."

"Regina. What are you –"

"I'm going to kill him, Snow," Regina continues, her voice becoming the growl of the woman that she'd once been instead the one that Emma had helped her to become over the last several months. "You want the truth about what I feel for Emma? Fine. Yes, I love your daughter. Perhaps more than I ever thought possible considering our roles in this disgusting little theatre of ours. I love her and for whatever incomprehensible reason, she loves me, but it's over. As for my plan, listen up: once Mendell has been found, I'm going to teleport myself to where he is, and then I'm going to rip his heart out and crush it into dust. Because you know what? I don't actually care why he did it, I only care that he did, and now, he'll die for it."

"Emma wouldn't –"

"I know she wouldn't," Regina replies sharply. "But since I'm going to lose her, anyway, and I'll probably again lose my son as well once he realizes why Emma is as badly hurt as she is, then I hardly see how it matters if I'm 'good' or 'evil'. And please, do us both a favor and don't start up another round of telling me how wonderful I was doing. It was only ever a matter of time."

"Regina, please, think about what you're saying. This is madness."

"Why? We both know that you don't want me anywhere around Emma."

"I don't. Especially not after this."

"And we both know that Mendell has to pay."

"He does."

"Then what's your issue? I take care of both of your problems for you."

"You think that I want you to break my daughter's heart by soaking your hands with more blood?" Snow demands. From behind her, the doors open, and David emerges, frowning as he sees the intensity of their standoff.

"I think it's a reasonable trade-off to get me out of her bed," Regina states, adding emphasis to the word "bed" just to antagonize Snow. "You do want me out, don't you? Or were you perhaps thinking that maybe we could all be some kind of twisted little perfect family again? Is that it?"

"What's going on here?" David asks as he comes over. It's evident to him that they're just seconds away from what might be a hell of a fistfight.

"Regina is planning to kill Greg," Snow snaps, glaring at the former queen.

"I'm your stepmother, Snow, not the other way around," Regina reminds her, her body language showing off her irritation with being told on. "It would really behoove you to stop acting like some kind of parent to me."

"Actually, as you told me a short time ago, you're not related to me at all. We are nothing to each other besides two women who both love Emma."

David's eyes flicker towards Regina's, taking in the sadness and anger he sees burning there. "She's right, Regina. There has to be another way to –"

"There isn't, and this isn't actually a discussion. Greg will die for what he did to Emma. I'm resolved to the blood that you are so worried about being on my hands; I would suggest that you find your way to that same place, too."

"And if I arrest you?" David asks, his hands on his hips.

"I have magic, you moron; just because I haven't been using it for the last eight months doesn't mean that I don't remember how. I know more than how to teleport, and if you try to get in my way, I will go through you."

"I can't believe that you'd throw away her love for you," Snow whispers.

"I'm not throwing it away, I'm protecting her from it."

"Call it whatever you want to, but we both know what this about, Regina."

"Oh, please, Snow, educate me as you are always so happy to do."

This is about you self-sabotaging your chance at happiness all over again."

"Need I remind you that you helped me do that the last time?"

"No, I remember everything. Including how you murdered my father."

"He deserved to die," Regina sneers.

"So did your mother."

"And that's enough," David snaps out, stepping between them. "Everyone needs to take a deep breath because this isn't helping Emma, and that's all that matters right now in case you two have forgotten. Emma. That's all."

"He's right," Snow says, stepping back.

"Yes, he is," Regina allows. "And this is getting neither one of us anywhere, anyhow. I'm going to go get myself some coffee. I expect you to let me know if Emma wakes up." She smiles coldly. "Or if your pet dog calls in."

"Do you really think we'll let you know where Mendell is?" Snow asks.

"I think you know I'll figure it out with or without you, and I'm sure you'd like a chance to show how good you are by talking me out of it. Because his life is certainly worth more than my mother's, and so letting me kill her is acceptable, but it would be awful for me to murder Mendell, yes?"

"No, that's –"

"Your shifting morality as always amuses me, Snow, but I lack the patience and desire to care about it right now. Tell me or don't, I will find him."

Before Snow can reply, Regina waves her hand. Purple smoke covers her for a few short seconds before clearing to show emptiness where she was.

"This is a problem, isn't it?" David says, his arm wrapping around Snow.

"It is," she confirms, her eyes still on the spot where Regina had been.

"So what do we do?"

"For now, we wait. And we hope she comes to her senses."

"It's Regina."

"Emma has faith in her."

"Emma is lying in that hospital bed with most of her bones broken, and Regina looks to me like she's given up hope."

"I know," Snow says softly, her eyes filling with tears. She turns into her husband's chest, then, and allows herself to feel the fear that she does.

The fear that is making her wonder if she really does want to stop Regina.

 

 

 

 

***** *****

Emma is sleeping when Regina teleports her way back into her hospital room a few hours later; she looks peaceful enough, but that's assuredly the drugs pumping through her veins as opposed to any kind of real comfort.

"When you wake up and find out what I've done, you're not going to understand," Regina whispers as she steps over to the bed. She stands above it for a long moment, wondering if she's going to grab a chair and sit or perhaps just stand here and watch Emma sleep. "But I told you before that she would always be a part of me. I wanted her to be someone else, Emma, but she's not. The Evil Queen is who I am. You were right before when you said that it's who I will always be. I fought against it, but the truth is that right now, I can see hurting that man so easily. I can feel it in my blood and it feels good. I want to make him bleed for what he did to you."

She takes a breath, and then gently runs a hand over Emma's forehead.

"Regina?" Emma husks out as she wakes up, the magic in Regina's fingers immediately doing as it should. Emma looks tired and weary, and it's clear that her body is protesting being removed from it's healing slumber, but well, Regina has always seen herself as a bit selfish at the worst of times, and right now, she needs this; she needs to hear Emma's voice.

"I'm here, my dear," Regina whispers, lowering herself down but still not sitting; she means to leave here soon and starting looking for Mendell herself. Wherever he's hiding out is somewhere where Ruby can't pick up his scent, and considering how he's been stalking Regina enough to know where she's been, she has a pretty good idea where he might be hiding out.

"Are you being crazy?" Emma asks, what sounds like humor in her voice.

"Assuredly. How awake you?"

"Not very, but enough to know that you're upset."

"I am. I'll be fine. Is there any chance you recall what happened today?"

"I was attacked," Emma replies, blunt even while drugged to the gills.

"You were. Do you happen to remember why?"

Emma smiles sadly, and that's all Regina needs to see to have her answer.

"Emma, tell me."

"You don't need to know."

"I know that Greg Mendell been after me. I just need to know why."

"I'm tired. We can talk in the morning. Or later. Or…just not now."

"I need to hear it. I will let you sleep again in a moment, but please?

Emma shifts uncomfortably in the bed, and for a moment, it's too much and she looks like she's about to pass out from the pain that even such a small movement causes her, but then she steels herself and responds between teeth tightly clenched in agony, "He said that you killed his father."

"Mendell said that?" She thinks back to how she could have possibly impacted the life of a man who isn't even from the Enchanted Forest.

"His name is Owen Flynn, not Greg Mendell."

Regina's face goes slack with shock. "Oh my God," she whispers as she suddenly and quite vividly sees the face of the boy that she's been dreaming about for months. She'd been meaning to tell Emma his rather heartbreaking story tonight; apparently, he'd found a way to tell it first.

"Is it true?" Emma asks, looking up at her.

There's a long pause and then softly, "Yes."

"Damn," Emma sighs, her badly bruised eyes closing for several long drawn out seconds. "Well, I guess that's better than a wrong number, right?"

"No, no it's not. I'll make this right, Emma."

Emma's pain-stricken green eyes open again, and for a brief moment, they seem so clear and she seems so aware. "Don't do anything stupid. Please."

"I love you," Regina tells her.

Emma looks as though she's been struck – and this time more than just physically so. Fear streaks across her face as she gasps out, "Regina –"

"I need you to sleep now, dear. It's all going to be all right."

"Don't go."

"Not until you fall asleep."

"Regina, please."

She leans forward and rests her forehead against Emma's. "Shhh."

"Please," Emma says again, hot tears streaking down her face.

"I won't let Owen hurt you again. I won't let you be hurt again by anyone."

She pulls her head back for a moment, and then leans in and very gently presses the lightest of kisses – almost chaste – to Emma's cracked lips.

When she pulls back, Emma is sound asleep once more.

Because some spells work quickly.

She tries not to think about the tears on Emma's face, ones that might be her own as well as Emma's. "I love you," she says again. "And I'm sorry."

She turns then and looks over at the door, her eyes meeting Snow's. For once, there's no antagonism between the two women, just a strange sadness that hangs over them as Snow looks deep into Regina's heartbroken eyes, and realizes that she plans to carry through with a plan that will surely destroy what's left of what had been a heart that had been finally beginning to heal itself.

"Don't do this," Snow pleads. "We can stop him together."

"That's not a choice we have," Regina replies.

"Why isn't it one?" Snow demands. "Because it might you from self-destructing? Because it might stop you from actually losing her?"

"Yes," the former queen replies before smiling sadly and then waving her hand in the air to once again allow the purple smoke to take her away.

"Different plan," Snow says to David as he comes up behind her. She places a hand on his forearm, and squeezes slightly.

"Tell me."

"I'm going after her."

"We don't know where she is."

"I know where she is," Snow replies. "She's at her vault because that's where she hid after Cora framed her. If Greg has been watching her for months now, he probably saw her go there. Ruby can't track her there which means she can't track him there, but if I'm her, that's where I go first."

"Okay, then we –"

"Not we, David. This is between me and her."

"Snow –"

"I killed her mother, and if I had just done that, that would have been enough, but I made her do it. I put her mother's blood on her hands. It's my responsibility to make sure that doesn't happen again. You and Emma have been trying to tell me for months that I needed to stop pretending and start accepting the truth of what I did to Regina and myself. Well, I have. And maybe it's selfish to be doing this for me but -" She chuckles. "It is selfish, but I think maybe for once it's the right kind of selfish. She doesn't want to do this; it's like you said, she just thinks she has no hope left."

"You're sure about this?"

"I'm sure that our daughter would want us to try to protect Regina from herself."

"Even if it means the two of them together."

"Yes."

"I want to go with you."

"I know, but I don't want her to wake up alone, and Henry is going to need you soon; he's been with Granny all day, and I'm sure he knows something is going on. When Neal finally gets into town, he's going to bring him here."

"Okay. But Snow, promise me something?"

"Anything."

"If you can't stop Regina, if she can't be stopped, promise me that you won't put yourself in the line of fire to make the impossible happen."

Snow offers him a soft loving smile, and then lies to him. "I promise."

 

 

 

 

**TBC…**


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Thanks as always for the kind words. I had to kick this out to include one last chapter that will hopefully wrap up the entire SAFE/REAL saga. It'll be shorter than this one, but hopefully give closure and satisfaction.
> 
> Warnings: Some language, some violence, Neal and well a shit ton of emotional upheaval.
> 
> One last note: there's not a lot of Emma and Regina in this chapter, but they're the dominant driving force throughout. I only mention this because I don't want anyone going in expecting scene after scene it in this chapter. This is a pretty big Snow/Regina payout.
> 
> Enjoy!

Snow runs like hell.

It's just after six at night, and it's already desperately dark and cold out and around Storybrooke, but all she's really thinking about is finding a way to get to the Mills family crypt before Regina does something that will destroy what could be her last real chance at happiness.

She tries – for the moment, at least - not to think too hard about the fact that Regina's last chance just happens to involve her having very strong feelings for Emma because that's just so very strange to contemplate.

Snow knows (finds herself actually hoping because that means that everything tonight works out for the best and no lines of no return have been crossed) that eventually she'll have to come to terms with the idea of her former stepmother being in a romantic relationship with her daughter, and if she's honest with herself, she is aware that it will be extraordinarily difficult to do so thanks to the past between she and Regina being so thick and miserable ugly. Still, if it's what Emma truly wants, Snow tells herself that she will find a way to accept them and even be happy for them because even though Regina is the last person in any world that she would have ever chosen for Emma, it's clear to her that they do have something special.

The question then is (and Snow is uncomfortably aware that it's not actually her question to ask or to answer, but rather theirs alone), is whatever they have special enough to repair the darkened heart of an Evil Queen.

Is it special and strong enough to make those undeniably powerful feelings that Regina has actually be the kind of love that can heal instead of destroy?

She can't think about that right now because her thoughts don't actually matter; all that does is the half-mile that exists between where she is now and where she believes Regina is. Eight months ago, Regina had been the one racing to stop her from doing something horrible – then, it had been about cursing Cora's heart and forcing Regina to be the one to kill her with it - and because of what had occurred that day, another terrible chapter in their already badly broken relationship had been written in bright red ink.

Those bloodstained pages can't be ripped out of the storybook that is their lives together – some things can't ever really be undone and their past is such - but Snow finds herself hoping that a happier chapter can be written. Or at least a less painful one not built on the back of betrayal.

Her feet move quickly, and though she's never been what anyone sane would call a good runner – in fact, she thinks she's rather terrible at it, to be honest – she moves with every bit of energy and need and hope within her.

Because she remembers being curled under warm blankets the morning after Cora's murder, and she recalls the way she'd felt. Like everything good in her had turned to dust, and try as she might, she couldn't blame anyone.

Because she'd made the choice.

She'd lit the candle and spoken Cora's name.

And she'd manipulated Regina, knowing well that the one thing Regina had wanted at the moment more than anything else in the world – perhaps even more than her dream of having Daniel again – was the chance to have her mother actually love her and be proud of her and want her.

Snow had used the desperate if not quite understandable (for her, anyway) need of an abused child to have her mother want her to her advantage. She had built her own safety – and her families - on Cora's corpse.

Cora had needed to be stopped, she reminds herself.

That's the bitter and undeniable truth of things: Cora had been a wretched and horrible woman who had deserved to die. If she hadn't been killed on that cold Winter day, she would have become the Dark One and then everyone would have been lost to her hatred. Even Regina would have likely become a casualty to Cora's ruthless ambitions and often very cruel need for unchecked power.

So yes, Cora had needed to be put in the ground, but God, not like that.

It's taken Snow so very long to understand that – to really and truly see the bright red blood that stains her hands and taints her soul – and to know that she has to make this right.

Her feet hit the soft wilting grass of the cemetery, and she slows down to a fast walk as her eyes settle on the crypt, the door of it hanging wide open like it's something out of a bad horror film.

It probably is.

And she knows – _she just knows_ \- that Regina is already inside.

Greg Mendell is, too.

Hopefully, he's still alive.

***** *****

He's waiting for her down below when he hears her shove the door to the crypt open, and start descending the steps down into the panic room like area that exists beneath her father's sarcophagus. Because of all the magical protections around the vault, she'd been unable to poof herself inside, but sneaking up on him hardly matters because there's nowhere for him to run.

They both know, and they're both about to deal with what that means. This is a confrontation that's been almost thirty years in the making, and now it's about to happen and Owen Flynn isn't sure if he feels excited or terrified.

Both, he realizes as he listens to the sharp clicking sound of her heels on the stone steps, each tap bringing her closer to him and hopefully closer to the end of her worthless and violent life. Knowing that the Taser trick that he'd used on the now fallen sheriff (he wonders if she's dead, and wonders how he's supposed to feel about this) won't work with Regina, he shakily holds a gun out in front of him, praying that his aim will be steady and true.

All the while praying to whatever higher power is still willing to listen to him after what he did to Emma (even though he's conflicted about the emotions he feels for his actions, he's aware enough to understand the lines that he's crossed) that he gets her before she gets him. He doesn't really wants to kill Regina right away – he'd rather make her suffer a little bit more – but if that's what happens, if his aim is that true, he's completely okay with that.

The bitter reality is that despite his savage attack on Emma, he's not really a man of violence, and he's not exactly a crack shot with a pistol. He imagines that the chance of him killing the Evil Queen with one shot is fairly slim if not completely non-existent. He thinks that probably means that he's going to die tonight as well, but if he is, if this is finally the end of all the pain and hurt, then he plans to take her out with him. That would be justice, he tells himself. He took her lover away, and now he'll try to take her life as well.

And if he has to go with her, well so be it.

Owen doesn't actually want to die here, but he believes that he's willing to do so if that's what it takes to make the pain he feels so deep in his heart and soul just stop hurting. He's willing to give up his life if it means that he can finally allow his father's ghost to rest in peace. That's enough, isn't it?

His father would be proud of him, wouldn't he?

She's getting closer now, and his fingers tighten around the gun, one of them sliding across the trigger. He plans to fire it the moment he sees her.

And then he does.

She appears in front of him, dressed like a clean and polished politician instead of the dark demon that he knows her to actually be, and his upper lip instinctively curls into a disgusted sneer. He feels hatred surge through his body – his heart - like a fire started with gasoline. Screaming in rage and anger and so very much more, he pulls the trigger and fires twice at her.

She reacts in alarm when she sees the gun, but just as he's trapped, there's nowhere really for her to go besides back up the stairs because the wards in the crypt simply won't allow her to transport herself out of his line of fire.

She hisses loudly in pain as the fragment of hot metal tears through her right arm, and he curses at her because she'd been faster in moving than he had expected her to be, and somehow the bullet that he'd wanted to enter her hateful black heart had found her bicep instead. His eyes are wide and shocked and now so very frightened, but still, he lifts his shaking hand as if to fire again because he has several more bullets and she's still pinned to the stairs and that means he has another chance to kill her and – well crap, apparently transporting doesn't work in this vault but magic still does.

She waves her hand and the barrel of the gun bends upwards, the metal hot enough to melt skin. With a loud cry, he drops the pistol and stares at her.

"Owen," she growls out as she takes a first step towards his trembling form, apparently completely oblivious to the fact that she herself is now bleeding copiously down her right arm, the sticky red disturbingly bright against the lighter gray of her sweater. Her eyes are almost entirely black now, utterly dark and furious, and he thinks he's about to find out how his father died.

"Regina," he replies, lifting up his head, and trying for defiant and confident in the face of her thundering anger. "It's good to actually talk to you as who we really are. Well, perhaps good isn't the word I'm looking for here, is it?"

"All I have is one question for you," she replies, her low voice almost sickly sweet. It reminds him of the stories of evil witches and how they had lured their unsuspecting prey into their horrible killing webs with false promises and dishonest kindness. How very appropriate, he thinks as he remembers a naïve and trusting little boy, a diner and a colorful plastic lanyard.

"Why her?" he asks. "That's your question? You want to know why I killed your lover?" He smiles when he says this even though he doesn't quite feel the pleasure that he'd wanted to. The sheriff, despite this serious lapse in judgment, had struck him as something of a good woman. Or at least she'd tried to be that; Owen's not completely sure he believes in Good, anymore.

Because Good doesn't defend Evil. Good doesn't bed down with Evil.

Good destroys Evil.

Good doesn't fall in love with Evil.

And yet, Emma had. So what does that mean? Does it mean that she deserved what had happened to her for forgetting her role in things? Did she earn her reward for choosing to turn her back on right for pleasure?

"Yes, why her?" Regina confirms, pulling him away from his philosophical debate. "Why not just come after me from the moment you found this town? Why stalk me and take pictures of me? Why not just try to kill me?"

"Because that would have been easy, Regina," he replies, like it's so very obvious. "I wanted you to hurt and to bleed as much as I have for the last thirty years of my life, and now you do. Considering your history with Snow White, I would think you of all people would understand."

"Spare me your moralizing; you went after an innocent girl," Regina hisses.

"No, I went after the girl that you love," he laughs nervously. His eyes are wild, and he's clearly scared because he can see the way her muscles are tensing up. "As for innocent, well she loves you back so how innocent can she really be? Only someone deeply sick could love a monster like you."

"You're right about one thing," Regina allows. "I am a monster. I killed your father thirty years ago for daring to defy me, and tonight, I'm going to bury you next to his rotting corpse for what you did to Emma. Because I do love her, and I will not have anyone take someone I love away from me again."

"She's alive?" he asks, his eyes wide with surprise and fear. He wonders if it's worse for her to have survived, wonders what kind of justice that is.

"Oh, yes, she's very much alive. You failed. She's going to be just fine."

He looks as though she's just ripped his heart out. Not because he'd failed to kill the sheriff – he'd never really wanted to hurt her at all – but because if he could so easily lose that simple battle, what chance does he have here?

Is all of this doomed to end with him resting forever next to his father's body without providing him any kind justice for what was done to him?

Has he hated for so long for it to come to this? For it to come to nothing?

"You know what the funny thing about all this is?" Regina asks, a smirk playing across her painted lips. "If you had just come after me in the first place, I probably would have let you have my life. You see, Owen, my dear, I've been in a strange place as of late. I've actually been feeling remorse for the evils that I've done. Like what I did to you. And I owed you so dearly."

"You still do," he retorts, his hand on the Taser in his pocket.

"Except you collected that debt from the wrong person. You collected from the one person who would have wanted me to make amends to you," she growls as she steps towards him, the bright blood continuing to drip down and stain the sleeve of her sweater. "I should really thank you, you know. You made me realize that I can't ever really make up for what I've done."

"No, you can't."

"So why should I even bother trying?" she asks almost lazily, smiling cruelly at him as she takes another step into his personal space. She's close enough now for him to be able to smell the light airy perfume that she's wearing. If she wasn't the Evil Queen, he'd think it pleasant. "Why should I waste my time and energy on trying to be a better person when I can just turn my attentions towards making sure that the people that I love – even if they can't love me for who I truly am – are safe from the demons of my past."

He swallows hard, realizing that yes, he is about to die by her hand.

"Aren't you going to beg for your life?" she asks, her eyebrow lifted.

"No. I won't. I won't let…I won't."

"I assume you think that's brave? Because let me tell you, dear, it's not."

"What would you know of bravery? You murdered a defenseless man for no other reason than because he didn't want to give up his child to you."

"You're right, I did. Which makes me pretty well qualified to know that bravery doesn't involve nearly beating a good woman to death because she was stupid enough to fall in love with a bad one. You knew exactly who you were attacking, Owen, and when you went after her, you became as evil as me because she was an actual innocent and was undeserving of your anger."

"There are no innocents," he protests.

She smiles thinly at this, thinking of a conversation she'd had back at the beach house with Emma, one about how despite all indications to the opposite, there has to be actual good people in existence because she simply can't handle the idea of Henry growing up in a world devoid of them.

"She defended you," he continues. "That condemns her as much as you."

"People with good hearts tend to see the best in others even when every sign in the world is pointing them in the opposite way," Regina replies, her hand reaching out to lightly settle over his chest. "But you and me, we see the truth, don't we? You've been like this a long time now, Owen, and you know how to spot someone who will always fall backwards, don't you?"

"I know that you're evil, and you always will be."

"So I am," she nods and then jerks her hand forward. Her strong fingers drive past skin and bone and muscle until they collide with his pounding heart. He gasps as she grasps at it, not yet pulling but just for the moment holding it in her palm, her dark eyes glittering with a kind of maniacal anger.

"It doesn't hurt," he tells her, tears on his cheeks.

"I can remedy that," she says, her hand squeezing just a little bit. She's playing with him now, and they both know it; in a moment, she'll rip his heart out and show it to him. She'll let him see the darkness that stains it, and she'll let him understand how much alike they are so that when he takes his last gasping breaths, he'll understands that he's no better than she is.

She wants him to know that he's as much of a monster as she is now.

"I'll never be you," he whimpers, his face contorting in pain as she tightens her grip, her perfect white smile increasing as his tears continue to fall.

"That's only because you won't be given the chance to be," Regina says in a voice that could be soothing but isn't. "You tried to kill Emma tonight, and only the wolf showing up stopped you from actually doing it. The first one is always the hardest, dear; after that, it would have been easy to try to take everyone I even looked kindly at away from me. It would have felt good."

"You don't know me."

"Oh, but I do, Owen. I do. You see, you're right; our vendettas are very much alike. Snow took from me and I stalked her across worlds. I justified everything that I did to her and every horror that I committed, and I did it with a smile on my face because I was right in my rage and in my hatred."

"We're not the same," he insists, but the dullness in his eyes tells her that he knows otherwise now; it tells her that she really did create herself in him. This realization is almost enough to make her back away from him because suddenly she sees history cycling in front of her eyes. Her mother, her mentor and now this boy who had been built upon hatred and loss in much the same way that she had. It's almost enough, but then she sees Emma.

She sees Emma sound asleep on that horrible hospital bed, so many tubes and wires connected to her, most of them trying to conceal her hurt.

She squeezes again, and listens to the way he weeps in pain.

"We are the same," she tells him, her voice deceptively gentle. "Let me show you just how much," she replies, and then starts to pull his heart out.

"Regina, stop!" a voice calls from behind her.

She turns her head slightly to the side, knowing that with her hand stuck in his chest, Owen won't be going anywhere anytime soon – and certainly not without her permission. She smiles darkly when she sees her visitor.

"Speak of the devil. Or considering that it's you, dear sweet Snow, is it speak of the perfect angel? Either way, I knew that you would show up eventually. Are you here to talk me out of killing Owen or will you actually surprise me for once and cheer me on. After all, his hatred for me is why your precious little girl is lying in a hospital bed fighting for life right now."

"You don't want this," Snow pleads, her hands out in front of her.

"Oh, of course, I do," Regina replies, returning her attention to Owen.

"No, what you want is Emma."

Regina's head snaps back around, her eyes widening and the almost silky rage that had been pouring off of her slides away as the sadness and fear overtakes her. "Don't you dare throw Emma in my face like she's some of carrot for good behavior, Snow. That's beneath even you."

"I know," Snow admits with a strange understanding smile that frankly makes Regina's skin crawl. "And I'm not…I'm not trying to wave any kind of carrot around. But Emma…my daughter loves you, Regina. That's why this happened today. That's why we're here right now. Because even though it's the very last thing that I would ever have wanted for her, she loves you."

"She's a fool. Just like you and just like your husband. Congratulations, Snow, you didn't raise her, but she's just as idiotic as the two of you."

"She is. Who could ever love you?" Snow asks, lifting up her head and staring right at Regina with pure challenge in her bright green eyes.

Eyes that remind Regina entirely too much of Emma.

"Exactly."

"And yet, she still does love you, Regina. I saw you two together in her room before you left. I heard what you said to her. I heard her."

"No, what you heard was Emma on painkillers begging me not to do this because stopping me from being who I actually am is what she does. She's always the White Knight. She believes…" She trails off, scowling deeply as she thinks of all the times that Emma has illogically stood beside her.

"She believes in you," Snow finishes, smiling slightly. "And who are either of us to say whether or not that's right or wrong. She does what she wants to."

"Because she's a fool," Regina repeats. "In any case, it doesn't matter."

"It does."

"It doesn't," Owen correct. "You know it doesn't, Regina."

"Shut up," Snow hisses.

"No, please do continue," the former queen purrs as she looks right at Owen, marveling at the strange kind of peace that seems to have overcome his previously tense features. This odd sort of calm is disturbingly familiar to her, and she recognizes it as the type of emotion that someone feels when he or she senses that the end is near. "Remind me why I should kill you."

"Regina –"

"Because you're a monster," Owen reminds her with an absurdly large grin considering the fact that her hand is still clutched around his heart. "And because Emma might think she loves you now but we both know that she'll never forget why she was attacked and that it wouldn't have happened if it wasn't for you. She'll always know that loving you ended up hurting her."

"Regina, he's trying to make you kill him."

"Oh? And why would he do that?"

"Because then he wins. If you kill him, you destroy yourself."

"Why is his life so special, Snow? I've taken so many. So tell me again, how will his death cause such uniquely devastating damage to my heart now?"

"Because you're not that woman, anymore."

"Yes, you are. You will always be her. The Evil Queen."

Regina ignores him, her eyes on Snow. "You're so sure of that, are you?"

"I'm not," Snow admits with a small frown. "But I know that I want to be. I want to believe in you – and me - as much as Emma does. I want to."

"That's laughable even for you. Just because I'm screwing your daughter these days doesn't actually mean that I'm a better person than I was before I was bedding her, Snow," Regina retorts, watching as Snow flinches at the crudeness of her words. Years ago, such a reaction would have delighted her, but now, it just hurts her heart, because even she knows that what she's had with Emma has been so more than just physical satisfaction. Still, she pushes on, trying to force Snow back and away. It's what she does. "Even you're not naïve enough to believe that." The part of her that has been so calm and at peace for the last several months cries out at her to stop this because this path can only lead in more heartbreak. The problem is, though, Regina has always utilized a scorched earth approach; it's so familiar to her.

Snow audibly swallows, and Regina can almost see the way that her former stepdaughter is forcibly reminding herself to stay in control. It wouldn't take all that much more to push Snow the rest of the way; all she has to do is keep shoving at the things that Snow really doesn't want to hear about. She might think she can handle the idea of an intimate Regina and Emma, but Regina knows better. She knows she can force Snow to walk away from her.

All she has to do is keep digging deep; all she has to do is keep trying to hurt Snow with her doubts and uncertainties about what's best for Emma.

And yet, instead of doing any of that, she waits for Snow to reply.

She waits for Snow to keep trying to convince her to stop this.

She thinks about just how much Emma and Henry really have changed her.

"I don't know if you're a better person, Regina, but I know that you are a different, one" Snow insists. "You know how I know that? The old Regina would have ended this already but you don't want to. You've just convinced yourself that you have to do this, but I think we both know that you want me to talk you out of it. You want me to give you a reason not to kill him."

Regina sneers at her in response, but the reaction is mostly there because she's completely annoyed by just how well Snow had just read her.

"If you don't kill me, I'll finish what I started," Owen promises her, looking almost panicked at the idea of Regina being able to walk away from him. If the only thing he can get out of this is knowing that by killing him, she will destroy her one chance at being able to be happy, he thinks that's enough.

Because his father is dead, and Emma's blood is on his hands, and suddenly the idea of trying to convince himself that he's not Regina is just too much.

Regina's head snaps back to him. Her face contorts and her hand squeezes.

"Regina, no! Please…please, no!"

"If you're so interested in saving me now, then why don't we make us a deal, Snow? I give this worthless little bastard what he wants and you turn the other way and pretend you never saw anything. It's for the better good isn't it? That is how you justified using me to kill my own mother, isn't it?"

"It is," Snow confesses, nodding her head emphatically. "And it was wrong."

"Spare me your pathetic self-indulgent naval gazing."

"It's not naval gazing, Regina; it's just the truth. I took the easy way out and had you murder Cora because I was sick to death of you and your family taking from me and mine. I was sick and tired of always losing to you."

"You have no idea what losing is really like. You always find a way to win," Regina hisses out in response to Snow, squeezing Owen's heart to keep him from speaking. His blue eyes are wide and frightened and a very large part of her finds an almost sickening amount of pleasure in his obvious pain.

She thinks for a brief and terrible moment of Emma with all of her vibrant bruises and cuts and breaks, and the way she'd sounded when she'd tried to speak, and it takes everything Regina has not to kill him where he stands.

"I have a pretty good idea what losing is like; I went twenty-eight years without my daughter thanks to you," Snow reminds her. There's hurt in her voice, but it's surprisingly muted, like its a fact instead of an accusation.

"And I've gone twice that without my true love thanks to you."

"And what is Emma to you? Is she not your true love, too?"

Regina's fingers suddenly loosen around Owen's heart as she finds herself tossing Snow's unexpected question around in her mind. She'd never considered the idea of a second true love. Is such a thing even possible?

No, not by the rules and beliefs of the old world.

But they're no longer in that world, and what she feels for Emma Swan is absolutely more than just a casual kind of easy love (not that Regina would know what that particular kind of love feels like, but she knows enough to understand that this – what she has with Emma - is more than that). The fact that she's willing to again stain her soul with murder to make someone pay for hurting Emma, well that's proof enough of her feelings for the Savior.

But is it proof that Emma, like Daniel before her, is her True Love? And does it even matter if she is or isn't? Do such terms apply in this world? Is the fact that Emma wants to be with her and she wants to be with Emma enough?

Unfortunately, her sudden distraction is enough for Owen to steal back the advantage, even with her hand in his chest. His own jerks up and he wraps it around her wounded arm, jamming his thumb into the bloody bullet hole and pressing down and in. It's pain unlike anything she's felt (she's certainly never been shot before) and she immediately cries out and pulls free of him.

"Regina!" Snow screams as Owen tumbles away from her, his hand over his chest. He hits the wall, and he's looking around as if for a weapon to use.

"I'm fine," the former queen hisses out as she straightens herself up. Her eyes are crinkled in pain, but her anger gives her strength as it always has.

"You had your chance," Owen says, holding the Taser he'd had in his pocket out in front of him like he thinks that he might be able to use it on her.

"Put that down," she says, her eyes glowing purple. "We both know that it's useless. All I have to do is snap my fingers and it's gone. So why don't we just stop with the theatre and get on with it. You want to die, so be it."

And then, she does as promised and the Taser is being yanked from Owen's hand before it sails across the room, and settles right next to Snow's feet.

"Regina."

"Shut up, Snow."

She clenches her hand, and suddenly is being pulled towards her, his feet dragging behind him as she places her hand against his chest again. "Did you think this is how it would all end for you? As just another victim?"

"No," he admits. "I thought I'd get to throw dirt over your face."

"Well, then you should have come after me instead of her."

He meets her eyes. "Yeah, I should have, but I'm not sorry I did it this way because when you crush my heart, you'll crush hers, too. She'll see who you really are and whom you will always return to being. And maybe that's how it should be because you don't deserve a second chance. So I still win."

"No, you don't," Snow says suddenly. There's a sizzling sound – like electricity – and then Owen is tumbling to the ground, his eyes rolling into the back of his head as his body trembles for a moment before going still.

She holds up the Taser, and turns her head to the side, as if daring Regina to condemn her for taking the choice and the chance to kill Owen away.

"It's over," she says softly.

"Is it?"

"It is. No more blood has to be spilled today."

"And if I disagree?"

"If you still want to kill Owen, I can't stop you and we both know it."

"What?"

Snow moves back. "If you're so sure you're going to do it, then do it."

"Are you insane?"

"I think I must be."

"Did you see what he did to Emma? Even your ridiculous brand of optimism can't be all right with just allowing such an attack to get unpunished."

"I did see it, and I'm not okay with what happened. And a very large part of me wants you to make him hurt, but…I have these dreams, Regina."

Regina just stares at her, likes she wondering if Snow really does get it.

"You know what I'm talking about, don't you? The ones that show you everything you've ever done, but sometimes you're watching through a filter and sometimes you're just watching yourself. Something changes in of you, and it keeps changing, and you want it to just stop, but it won't."

"It stops every now and again," Regina says softly, her eyes still on Owen.

"When you allow yourself to be happy instead of angry all the time."

"It's not that easy."

"It is. It can be. I can't stop you from killing Owen if that's what you really want to do, but there's another way, Regina. We can put him back on the outside, and we can close Storybrooke down to outsiders again. We can put all of this behind us, and try to deal with the things we have between us."

"Between us? You and me?"

"We're family, whether you like it or not."

"Whether I like it? Are you telling me that you're okay with –"

"No. I don't want you with Emma. I don't. But…but that's not my choice. "

"Yes, well, I doubt you'll have to worry about that."

"Have faith in her, Regina."

"It's not about faith, it's about the truth. Owen might be suicidal, but he's also right; she's going to have to live with the fact that she was hurt for daring to defend me against someone who had every right to hate me."

"She knew what she was doing."

"I highly doubt that she did. Your daughter for all the horrible things that she has seen and been through doesn't actually understand just how truly evil that desperation can make a person. She's done some things in her life that she's not proud of as well, but she's not me, and she never will be."

"Which makes her perfect for you."

"And what makes me perfect for her?"

"I don't know. Honestly, I don't think you are. She can do better."

"At least you're honest about that." Regina looks down at Owen, sadness overtaking her face for a moment. "I would have killed him. I would have."

"But you didn't, and you're not doing it now, either. I know you better than almost anyone, Regina; if you wanted to do this, you would have done it."

"Fine. If you really think I can be saved, then let's do it your way, Snow."

Snow exhales.

"But not quite your way."

Snow's eyebrow leaps up into her hairline. "What?"

"We're going to put him on the outside of Storybrooke, and we're going to lock this town down just as you said, but we're also going to take something away from him. Something that he no longer needs," Regina says quietly.

"I don't understand."

"You will. But we need to see Gold."

"Now?"

"Now."

Regina bends down over Owen and places a palm on his chest – not next to his heart, Snow notes grimly – and then offers her other hand to Snow.

"We're teleporting?"

"We are. I'd take a deep breath if I were you, dear."

"Is this going to hurt?"

Regina smiles sadly at her question, "After everything that has happened today, I'm not sure that either one of is capable of feeling any further pain."

"You're bleeding," Snow notes, her eyes on the bloody wound on Regina's arm. It's more black than red now, and certainly needs medical attention.

Regina turns her head, looks at the bloody bullet hold and nods. "Exactly."

Their eyes meet in understanding, and then Snow takes her hand, inhales and exhales and then says, "All right, Regina, do what you have to do."

"You're aware that I could kill both you and Owen right now, yes?"

"You won't."

"Not today," Regina allows with the kind of smile that actually feels like real progress has finally been made, and then all Snow sees is purple smoke.

***** *****

"Hey, buddy," Neal murmurs he steps outside. They've been at the hospital for the last hour, and though they've each had a chance to visit with Emma – if she'd been conscious, she'd been pissed off about Henry seeing her like that – neither one of them is feeling calm about things at the moment.

Because Emma is hurt and drugged up and Regina and Snow are missing.

Well, no they're not actually missing according to David. Per his rather frustrated admission, they're on the hunt for the man who had hurt Emma.

A man named Greg Mendell who had apparently attacked Emma because he'd wanted her to pay for falling in love with the former evil queen.

If not for being the son of the Dark One, Neal would find that absurd.

He still does.

And he still has his doubts about whether an Evil Queen could ever really love enough to be worthy of someone like Emma, but he thinks about a typewriter and a piece of paper, and he knows that he's the last person who has the right to wonder about the kind of person that Emma could love.

So he stands beside his son, and he waits for him to talk.

Because Emma no longer wants his love like she once did, but he thinks that he can still give her the kind of support she needs when it matters the most.

"I don't know what I'm supposed to feel right now," Henry admits. "I heard what you and gramps were talking about. How this is mom's fault."

"Of course you did," Neal replies with a low chuckle. "But I don't think you heard right. Your mom may have done some pretty bad things to this guy in the past – she did do bad things to him - but she's not the one who hurt Emma today. She didn't make Mendell attack Emma; that's not on her."

"But one of my moms was hurt because of my other mom."

"Henry, you know who your mother is, don't you?"

He frowns at the question.

"Is she the Evil Queen or is she your mother?"

"She's…she's both, right?"

"Yeah, she is. Here's the thing: if you know that and can accept that, then is it really fair to get angry at her when someone else remembers that? Is it okay to forget who she is until someone else gets pissed off at her?"

"I don't understand."

"Kid, Regina did terrible things as the Evil Queen. Emma knows a lot of them just as I know a lot of things my father did. There's no way to know everything, though, but I've chosen to forgive him for what I can and I want to rebuild a relationship with him. Emma and your mom are the same."

"So I'm not supposed to be mad at my mom?"

"You can be whatever you want to be," Neal replies with a shrug. "But I think that maybe you should think about the last eight months and who she's been during that time. Has she been happy? Have you been happy?"

"Yeah. With Emma."

"And you. The two of you make her happy." He shakes his head. "This isn't how I would have chosen things to go. In my story, Emma gives me a second chance, and it's the three of us, but that's not how it all went down. Years ago, when I had my opportunity, I screwed up badly, Henry, and luckily for all of us, Regina was there to ensure that you were still happy and taken care of while Emma paid for my mistakes. And then something like fate kicked in and they found each other and…I'm just glad to be part of it."

"Part of my two moms?" He wrinkles his nose like there's something a little about off about that but Regina still hasn't let him take sex-ed yet so maybe the lewd reference that someone else might make, he doesn't yet get.

He laughs, and doesn't tell his son that not only is that not his kind of thing, but he doesn't see either woman as the sharing type. "Part of your life."

"Oh." He thinks for a moment before asking with a frown, "What if there are others out there like Greg out there? People who want to hurt mom?"

"Emma knows who your mom is. She knows what the risks are."

"Is them being together worth the risk of Emma being hurt again?"

"I think that maybe happiness is worthy pretty much every risk there is."

"You sound like you actually like my mom," Henry notes, sounding curious.

Neal smiles slightly. "Regina and I have to come an understanding over the last year. I don't think we're ever going to be anything like real friends, but I think we get each other and we both want the same thing."

"Me and Emma happy."

"Exactly."

"Are they happy together?"

"Your moms? Yeah, I think they are."

"But how do you know? It's not like my mom lets anyone see what she's feeling. I never see her and Emma kiss. I see Gram and Gramps the time."

"Adult eyes see different things besides just kissing, kid."

Henry tilts his head, clearly not understanding.

He chuckles. "Okay, so you remember a few months ago when I came into town, and your mom reluctantly invited – ordered - me over for dinner?"

Henry smiles at the memory of the rather amusing and completely childish argument that he'd heard that night between his mothers. "Yeah. Emma made her do it. Said that you two need to work on getting along better."

"She was right; Regina and I tend to have a very bad habit of trying to intentionally get on each other's nerves, and that's not what's best for you."

"I'm a big kid; I can handle it."

"I know you can, but you're our kid. Anyway, it was a pretty good dinner."

"Mom's a good cook."

"Yeah. So after dinner, when I went in to take them back some dishes, I saw them cleaning and drying together and you won't understand this for a few more years yet, but it's about the touches, Henry. Even the ones we don't always notice. It's about being comfortable and…they are. When they're not fighting the world or her past or me or whatever, they're just…right. They make sense even if it doesn't make sense to anyone else, you know?"

He runs his fingers through his hair, and hopes that Henry won't ask for explanation more than that. It'd been a bit of a shock for him to see the way Regina's hand had lingered on the small of Emma's back, and then the easy way Emma had passed by Regina with a knock of her boot against heel.

He's fairly sure that no one besides Emma would have ever dared kick the queen's shoe, and he's certain that no one else would have survived it. That had been his moment of understanding that yeah, this really could work out for the two of them, and if it did, they'd actually both be better off for it.

"I guess," Henry finally answers. "I just want them to both be happy because I don't think they always are. Can…can they be? Even with mom having been the Evil Queen? Is Emma going to need protection now?"

"Emma? No way. She's pretty damned tough. I know it doesn't seem that way right now, but in a week she's going to back up trying to hop over the hood of cars again. As for protection…well, that same night, you remember how your mom and I left together?" Off of Henry's nod, he continues, "I insisted she come have a beer with me so we could try to continue bonding, and Emma talked her into it and then out of it a few minutes later." He laughs at the memory. "I think Emma thought I was going to have some kind of warning conversation with Regina, but there was really no reason to do that because there is no one is more protective over Emma than Regina."

"It was so much more simple at the beach house."

"Yeah," Neal admits, reaching out to ruffle Henry's hair. "The real world kind of sucks, but if they can find a way to make what they have work out here – if we all can find a way to make this bizarre little family of ours make some kind of sense – then I think maybe we can make it work anywhere."

Henry looks up at him like he doesn't understand, and Neal thinks he's oddly grateful for that because right at the moment, one of his mother's is in serious condition and the other is on a magical bender, and the truth is that Neal just doesn't know how – or if - all of this is going to end up okay.

He's about to say something to remind Henry that he shouldn't worry about these kinds of thing – but then his cell is buzzing in his pocket. He yanks it out and then shows it to Henry when he sees that screen says: REGINA.

"Regina. We were just talking about you. Is everything all right?" he asks once he puts the phone next to his ear. He listens for a moment, and then nods his head. "Yeah, he's right here with me. Do you want me to –"

He stops speaking and just listens, his face growing serious.

"Right. Okay, yeah. I'll be there in five." He hangs up the phone.

"What's wrong? Is she hurt, too?"

"She's okay, but she needs my help with something."

"Something like what?" Henry asks, noticing the way that Neal is frowning,

"Don't worry; everything is fine," Neal assures him. "What I need from you right now is to go sit with Emma; I don't want her to ever wake up alone."

"She's fine?" Henry pushes. "Right?"

"She is. Henry, please?"

"You wouldn't lie to me."

"Not about that," Neal hedges. Then, realizing that he's just worried Henry even more, he clarifies with, "I promise you, she is fine. She was just talking to me on the phone, and she's looking forward to getting back here."

"So you're bringing her back with you?"

"I am. In about an hour or so, but yeah. Now go, stand guard."

"I can do that,"

"I know it," Neal says, and then leans over and kisses him on the top of his head, holding it there for a moment as he thanks Regina again – and God, he never thought he'd thank her for anything – for raising this kid right.

With a strong heart, a fast brain and a desire to protect those he loves.

Some of that might be genetic – some of it had to have come from Emma, he thinks – but the keenly intelligent way that Henry watches him, the way that he just knows that there is so much more going on, that's all Regina.

The way he refuses to do as told? Well that's both of his mothers.

One day, he'll realize just how lucky he really is.

***** *****

There's an almost surreal feel to all of this; it's just the three of them – Gold, Regina and Snow – sitting in the middle of his shop. Regina is seated on an old wood chair a few feet in front of the checkout counter, stripped down to the waist except for a simple (for her, anyway) bra. If she's uncomfortable with how much she's revealing to her former mentor, she isn't showing it.

Snow walks around the two of them, her eyes stapled to the way his hand is moving over Regina's arm, a light glow covering up the bullet wound. "So if you can do this," she starts, "Does this mean you can heal Emma as well?"

"I'm afraid not," Gold replies. He cups his hand, and a moment later, a chunk of twisted metal falls into his palm. He shows it to Regina with a small smile, and then continues with, "Miss Swan's injuries far exceed a simple flesh wound. While painful, the bullet didn't crack bone or tear muscle. It's a fairly simple redistribution of energy required to fix an injury like this one."

"But Emma's –"

"Would require far more energy than either of us have," Regina replies. "If we absolutely had to because Emma was in critical condition beyond the abilities of medicine, we could repair Emma enough to live, but she'd still have most of the breaks. Magic can fix much, but it's not a fix-all."

Gold gives her a knowing smile and nods his head approvingly.

"She's right. However, didn't I hear that Miss Swan is expected to make a full recovery?" Gold asks as he continues waving his hand over the wound.

"Whale believes that she's going to make a full recovery," Snow allows. Her eyes track down to Owen's body, which is on the floor of the shop. He's been bound with some kind of twine so that if he wakes up, he won't be able to do anything stupid. Like try to attack a Dark one and an Evil Queen.

"Good. So let's walk through what you need me to do again, yes?" Gold suggests as he walks over to an oversized spell book and flips it open. He doesn't actually need to say the spells aloud – or even breathe them in these days – but he likes to always remind himself of the elements of each before he uses one. He likes to remember the mechanics and the flow.

"Shouldn't we wait for your mutt to arrive?" Regina asks.

"Regina," Snow sighs

She casts a look over at Snow. "Sorry. Old habit."

"Considering I've just healed up your arm, I would think you'd be nicer."

"As you said, I wounded my arm, not my head. And besides, I wouldn't need your help with it at all if you'd ever taught me how to heal myself."

"You can make a cut go away," he shrugs as he comes back over to inspect the wound more carefully. The bullet had lodged in there, and despite what he'd said earlier, there had been some minor muscle damage that will likely leave her with limited range for a few days, but otherwise, it's clean enough.

"And that's so very helpful," Regina retorts as she moves her arm away from his gently probing his fingers. He's being kind enough, but it's still hard for to trust that there aren't any strings attached to even his benevolent deeds.

Snow glances away from them; there's a feeling like she's caught in the middle of an old history that is so damaged and broken that it's almost a comedy of absurdity. The way these two interact is with such familiarity and there's hatred there, but also a bizarre kind of respect and almost affection.

It makes no sense at all.

She's not sure that really wants it to.

She just wants this day over.

And she wants her daughter home and safe.

Wherever home is these days.

Even if it's with Regina, she realizes, her eyes flicking back to the woman.

The door to the shop opens then, and Neal enters, his gaze immediately seeking Regina out, and then – when he notices her unexpected state of undress - dropping down to the floor where Owen is still passed out.

"Is he dead?" he asks with a frown, his forehead creasing.

"No," Regina replies as she stands and reaches for her sweater. She scowls when she looks at how ruined the fabric is, but her options are decidedly limited considering the only other clothes that Gold likely has around here belong to Belle, and well, that's just not happening. She sighs and pulls the sweater over her head, wincing as the movement jerks her arm around.

"You okay?" Neal asks, finally looking up at her.

She levels him with the kind of expression that's meant to remind him that they don't like each other, and only associate because of Henry, but he doesn't back down because he remembers drinking beer with her and talking to her about Henry's first words. "He shot me," Regina says finally, when she realizes that he's still looking at her. "I'm fine. How is she?"

"She's Emma," he replies with a shrug. "You know how she is."

"Of course. We need your help getting Owen out of Storybrooke."

"You're going to have to give me more than that, Regina."

She sighs like he's trying to annoy her on purpose; he probably is.

Like father like son.

Snow steps forward. "We want to take him over the town line and make sure that he can't come back over. Regina is the only person besides your father that can do it, but we want to take him a bit further out than just right outside. We were thinking the next town. About thirty miles away."

"What aren't you telling me? If he's going to be unconscious –"

"He's likely to wake up soon," Regina replies. "The reason we need you to do is because we're going to need you to take him to a hospital."

"Why? Are you planning to hurt him?"

"Would you care?" she retorts. "You saw what he did to Emma."

"I did, but it's not really my thing to kill unconscious people."

"No, I suppose it's not," Regina replies coolly, and it's unclear whether she thinks that's a good a bad thing. "That's irrelevant, though, because we are not going to hurt him; we're going to take his memory away."

"Excuse me?"

Regina rolls her head back and looks at Gold. "Really?"

He chuckles dryly. "What our impatient Queen means to say, Bae, is that we're going to purge his memories and give him a blank slate. It'll be as though he has a full-blown case of amnesia. The unrecoverable kind."

"Why? I assume the second part of the plan is to put some kind of shield over Storybrooke so that only a select few can get in and out, right?"

"That's right," Snow says. "Anyone with magical blood."

"Then why –"

"Because despite what he did today, he doesn't deserve to live with the heartbreak of what he lost and what he became because of me," Regina says. "He'll never get over it, and he'll never stop looking and…" she trails off, her jaw tightening like she thinks that maybe she's made herself too vulnerable in front of people who have for a long time been her enemies.

"Okay," Neal agrees. "So will you give him new memories, then?"

"There's no curse in effect for him so no, I can't give him anything new. Your father will just wipe out what's already in his head. His fingerprints will tell him who he is, but he won't remember anything that can hurt him. He won't have an emotional connection to the loss of his father which means that hopefully, he can finally move on from it," she replies.

"That'll work?"

"It should," Gold nods. "Even if he researches himself, he's unlikely to find anything that will lead him back here or back to the anger he once felt."

"So my dad wipes his deck, and I take him to the nearest hospital like he's some guy who wandered into the middle of the highway?" Neal asks.

"Exactly. If you have to provide contact information, at least you exist. Any of the rest of us could cause issues. My last crossover was ten years ago."

"Right, yeah. I get it."

"You're sure about this?" Snow asks, looking right at Regina.

"I think I need to never see this man because if I do, I'll kill him for what he did today even with you in my ear, Snow. But…but he has a right to his hatred of me. I earned that. We all know, though, that you won't let him have me and your heroic imbecilic daughter certainly wouldn't permit it."

"That heroic imbecile loves you," Snow reminds her.

"She's right, Regina," Neal confirms.

"I'm aware. And I'm also aware that I'm not ready to die today. For once, I have things that I would like to live for," Regina allows, seemingly almost uncomfortable with the honesty of her admission. "As selfish as that is."

"Then we do this," Neal nods. "Are we waking him up?"

"Yes. He needs to be awake for me to get to his memories," Gold states.

"Of course," Regina murmurs. She kneels down next to Owen, and gently places a hand on his cheek. Part of her wants to press inwards with her nails and mark him, but the bright part of her heart that Emma has nursed back to health and made a whole again stops her. "Owen," she says. "Wake up."

He blinks after a moment and looks up at her, confusion and then fear shining brightly on his terrified face. "Regina," he whispers. He starts to move away from her, but she holds her hand on him and shakes her head.

"No," she says. "It's over. You need to calm."

"Calm down? You're going to kill me now, aren't you?" He looks up at the others. "You're all going to let her do it? Okay. Fine –"

"No one is killing you. Not today," Gold states as he kneels down next to Regina. He places his hand over Regina's and a bright light surges forward.

"What are –"

"Shh," Regina says. "Just let it all go, dear. No more pain."

"I don't understand."

"All you need to understand – and you won't even know this much in a few moments – is that we never met. I never took your father from you, and I never changed you. You can start over, and be free all of this," she urges.

"My father?" he whimpers out.

"Just pictures on the wall that no longer hurt."

"It's my turn now," Gold tells her gently.

She takes a breath, and then steps back and away from him, standing up and moving over to Snow. They watch together – side by side in a way that they never believed they could be without wanting to kill each other – as Gold eradicates all of the damaged memories in Owen Flynn's mind.

"You're just Greg Mendell from now on. There's no more Owen Flynn," Gold tells him, and then the bright light is everywhere, and Greg is gasping in pain and sadness and even relief.

When it's over, he collapses, his eyes rolling backwards.

"I got him from here," Neal says as he gently lifts Owen's body up, holding up around the waist as he moves him towards the door of the shop. "I'll try to get back as quickly as I can, but it'll probably be a few hours at least."

Regina simply nods her head, her thoughts spinning back to a little boy and then jumping forward to a beautiful woman. Part of her wants to run away, put a wall back up and be thankful that she's survived yet another dark day.

But she can't do it.

She can't run away from this, and she can't push Emma away.

She has to allow Emma the chance to do that first.

She owes her that much.

"Regina," Snow starts.

"I need to change clothes," she says. "I have blood all over me."

Snow blinks because it seems such a strange thing for Regina to care about, but then she sees the tears in her former stepmother's eyes and she knows that this is more about Regina needing a moment to collect herself than it is about the ruined sweater. So she offers a small smile and says, "Of course."

"I'll meet you back at the hospital in a bit."

"Are you –"

"I'm fine, Snow."

"And if you weren't?"

"We're better, dear, but we're still not good." There's no malice in her words, no cruelty to speak of, just a kind of weary resignation. They might never be more than that, but for the first time in forever, there's actually a desire to be, and that's enough for neither of them to push just yet.

"No," Snow agrees. "I'll let Henry know where you are."

"Thank you." She looks over at Gold and says it again.

He simply tilts his head. Like he understands.

He does.

The son of a bitch always has.

***** *****

It's almost eleven at night when she finally seats herself next to Emma's bed. If this were a hospital in any other town, she would have been politely told that visiting hours are over and that she should try to come back tomorrow, but she's in the town that she'd built with just her mind and a dark curse, and so no one dares to stop her from sitting beside Emma.

Even Victor hadn't bothered to say a word in protest when she'd passed by.

"You're wearing my sweatshirt," Emma chuckles, her voice painfully dry.

"It was the first thing I saw laying around when I went back to the house to change clothes," Regina replies. "It's quite uncomfortable."

"Liar."

"I suppose I am. I imagine there's no sense in asking you how you are?"

"I'm shitty."

Regina chuckles, now oddly calmed by the relentless honesty that Emma has always provided her with. It's weird to think that there was a time when she'd been outraged by the audacious bluntness of the woman. Insulted that she'd dare speak to a queen with such an impertinent tongue.

"How are you?" Emma queries between rough harsh coughs.

"Such a ridiculous question."

"Why?"

"Because you're the one lying in a hospital bed looking like a character out of one of those eighties boxing films."

"You watched Rocky?"

"Accidentally."

"Uh huh. Mary Margaret told me you got shot."

"Then I presume she also told you that Gold healed my arm." She lifts up her arm as if to show Emma, and then clinches her teeth to stop a wince.

"She said he made it better. It still looks like it's hurting you."

Regina rolls her eyes.

"What was that for?"

"I have a sore arm, you idiot; you're…"

"Broken."

"Yes."

"No. I'm busted, not broken."

"Semantics."

"Not in my book." She reaches out her hand – a hand that has an IV stuck into the top of it – and signals for Regina to take it. When the former queen refuses to do so, she asks in a soft low voice, "We're okay, right?"

"I don't know how we can be, Emma."

"You didn't cross any lines today."

"But I wanted to. And if your mother hadn't been there, I would have. I know you want to believe that's not true, but Emma, I wanted to kill him."

"I know who I chose to be with. I know what you're capable of. I do."

"Did you expect to be hurt because of what I'm capable of?"

"Physically? No," Emma admits with another dry cough.

"Then maybe we need to sit down and talk about this."

"Is that what you want?"

"Isn't talking what we're supposed to do? Isn't that what you wanted us to do this morning before all of this happened? Talk everything out?"

"Were you going to tell me Greg's story tonight?"

"I was."

"Crap timing."

"Indeed."

"Take my hand, would you, please?"

Regina frowns, but does as requested, her fingers folding around the sheriff's. She almost startles when she feels the way Emma squeezes tight.

"I love you and I know you love me. I know you're scared."

"Aren't you?"

"Yeah, but I'm in a hospital bed. Why are you scared?"

Regina laughs, the sound loud and pained. "Are you serious?"

"I'm on severe drugs and I can still feel pain like you wouldn't believe, Regina so yeah, I'm pretty serious right now. What are you afraid of?"

"Emma –"

"Tell me."

"You want to know? Fine. I'm scared of what you make me feel. I'm scared that I feel so lost right now and so desperate and so out of control because every other time that I've ever felt like this, I've lost everything because I tried to hold on too tight and I just made everything worse. I'm not a weak woman, Emma and I feel like I am when I…right now I feel like I need to get up and I need to walk out of this room, and I need to do it because –"

"Because you think it's the right thing for me." Emma smiles lazily, almost affectionately at the former queen. "You might be the only person that I have ever met, Regina, that actually believes that being selfless is weak."

"It's not…I'm not selfless, Emma. I'll never be selfless. I know what I need to do but I don't want to do it and I think…I think that's where I'm weak."

"What about what I want? And what I need?"

"And what are those things?"

"Your sheets and your comforter. Wouldn't mind your pillow, either."

"Emma –"

"I want my family, Regina, and you're a massive part of it. I didn't expect what happened today to happen, and I'd really prefer it never did again, but I was with you in the vault; I know who you are and what you did. If you had told me Owen's story last night, there wouldn't be a question today about whether we'd still be together. There's not a question for me now, either. I want you and I need you and I want our family and I need that, too."

"You're drugged."

"Yeah. You think you can ask for more? That'd be nice."

"I can do better," Regina says, squeezing Emma's hand. A bright yellow glow surrounds it. "This isn't healing magic because I was never taught it, but it's a numbing spell which should help you to sleep for a few hours."

"I like that idea. Is it okay for you to use magic again?"

"No, but we can deal with that tomorrow. Tonight, I need you to rest. And besides, this is a fairly innocent spell; there's not a tremendous amount of evil that can be done with numbing magic. Not that I'm aware of, anyway."

"Will you give me a kiss goodnight?" Emma asks, sighing as Regina's magic slides through her bloodstream, pushing the pain and hurt far away.

"Really?"

"Really."

"You're such a child sometimes," Regina tells her, unable to hide her smile.

"Yeah," Emma agrees. "But humor me, anyway."

Regina leans down, then, and presses her lips very gently against Emma's, feeling the dry and cracked and even broken texture. It's enough to bring tears to her eyes, but she doesn't pull away out of fear that this could be it.

Perhaps Emma will wake up in the morning with a clear mind.

Perhaps she'll –

But then Emma is kissing her back, and it's weak, but somehow still strong.

And she knows that Emma isn't planning to go anywhere.

"I love you," Emma tells her. "I love you, I love you."

"Shut up and go to sleep."

"And you love me, too," Emma presses, smiling dopily.

"I do. Now rest. Please."

"As long as you promise me that we'll talk tomorrow. And the day after that. And we'll keep talking as long as we have to figure all of this out."

"That could be the rest of our lives."

"Okay."

Regina snorts in something like amazed amusement, and then pushes more of her numbing magic into her hands, and then into Emma's damaged body.

She's almost grateful when Emma's eyes close and she's sleeping again.

Grateful because she's pretty sure that if Emma keeps talking and keeps saying words like "I love you", she'll break into entirely too many pieces.

"Is she out cold again?" she hears from the doorway. She looks over and sees Snow and David standing there, both of them looking exhausted.

"She is. She should be able to sleep the rest of the night now."

"That's…that's good. DO you mind if we sit with you for awhile?"

Regina almost says no, even wants to say no, but it's been a very long day, and she thinks that maybe she should be in the morgue down below or perhaps in her office at home staring down at hands covered in blood.

But she's not so she nods her head and points to two chairs against the wall.

"I have coffee," David tells her, and offers her a cup.

"Thank you. Has Neal called in yet?"

"He has. He's going to be there most of the night," Snow answers.

"And Henry?"

"With Ruby. Which he's not a bit happy about," the former princess chuckles. "He wanted to see you. He's pretty worried. About both of you."

"Tomorrow," she says as she takes a sip of the coffee – clearly brought over from Granny's. Then, because she knows that they're incapable of sitting in companionable silence, she asks, "What story is it that you want to hear?"

"Tell us about the two of you," David suggests. "How did you go from trying to kill each other to…doing other stuff." His face contorts for a moment and she wonders if he's thinking about the pictures he'd seen.

"Are you sure that you want to know. I'm still your oldest enemy."

"And she's still our daughter," Snow replies. "And it's still her choice."

"Very well, but don't say I didn't warn you."

"You can leave out the details," David assures her.

She lifts an eyebrow, and yeah, he's thinking about the pictures.

"So," Snow prompts, her eyes flickering over Emma's sleeping form.

"So, she bought me peppermint," Regina says finally, after a long moment of thought. "I had a terrible headache, and she bought me peppermint."

**TBC…**


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: We have finally reached the end of the saga that started in SAFE and concluded here. I hope it wrapped up everything in a satisfactory manner. I'm not anticipating any further entries into this universe, but I'm not opposed to a rare one-shot or so. We'll see.
> 
> Either way, I thank you for your kind words along the way; they have been inspiring. I hope you enjoyed the tale as much as I did. If interested, I can be found on Tumblr at sgtmac7
> 
> Warnings: Some mild language, a bit of depression, non-graphic sexual situations and Neal.

The wounded sheriff is still sleeping when Regina comes to in the hospital room several long hours later. Bright rays of sunlight are rather irritatingly trying to stream their way in through cracks in the shades, and that alone tells Regina that quite a bit of time has passed since she'd been left alone with Emma after a painfully long discussion with David and Snow.

A long discussion all about how her relationship with Emma had come to be.

Not that she'd provided them with many details – certainly nothing intimate, and she never will be forthcoming with that kind of information – but she'd given them just enough to satisfy their curiosity at least for the time being.

They want to try to accept this new (to them, anyway) romantic relationship between the two women, and while Regina finds herself somewhat touched by the effort, she's also annoyed because it shouldn't be so easy for them to not care whom their daughter is with. They should be concerned that Emma is sharing a bed and her body with the evil woman who'd tried to kill them all numerous times. It would be understandable if they were bothered by it.

But they're just so goddamned _good_ all the time that even when it would be acceptable for them to act like judgmental jerks, they try not to. That doesn't mean that they're all that successful at trying to be kind and understand because well, righteousness has always come terribly easy to these two, but they are at least attempting to be open to it.

They're at least attempting to let their daughter and their former enemy find happiness.

Regina is under no illusions that it could ever be so easy.

She hears the soft beep-beep-beep of the heart monitor, and it's soft but steady and so is her breathing when she remembers that the noises that she is hearing right now mean that Emma is alive and she's going to be all right.

Emma is going to make it through this.

Maybe if they're lucky, they all will.

She leans down towards Emma, wincing at her now much her sore arm barks at her, reminding her of the bullet that had torn through it a few hours earlier. Of course, this pain is completely inconsequential to her especially considering how dark and deep almost all of the marks on Emma's body have gotten; if she'd looked bad yesterday, she's ten times worse today.

She imagines that Emma's going to feel that much worse, too.

No matter what, Emma is going to be in this bed for a time to come; her injuries are severe even if they're no longer considered to be life threatening as long as there are no bizarre twists in the road (Regina would really love it if Dr. Whale would stop prefacing every one of his reassurances with this rather troubling statement) which means that she's going to need constant observation and a steady stream of painkillers. At least until she can manage to talk or even turn her head without looking like it's killing her.

With a soft sigh, Regina gently runs the tips of her fingers across Emma's forehead; despite the copious bruising around both of the sheriff's eyes, the skin above it is remarkably untouched, and it gives Regina a place to touch that doesn't make her worry that she's about to further injure her blonde lover.

"I need to go out for a bit," she tells Emma. "Henry is surely awake by now, and I expect he'll have questions about what happened. I don't know how it's going to go with him, and I admit I'm worried. I know you would tell me to believe in him, and I'll try, but…none of this matters right now. All that matters is that you rest and get better so you can get out of this bed. You look…you don't look right in it."

Emma doesn't stir; she just keeps on sleeping and the heart monitor keeps beeping out its rhythm. It's not much but it's enough.

Still, it's the kind of comfort that Regina needs right at this moment because she's absolutely terrified to face Henry after all that has happened. He's a smart boy, and he's surely put together the pieces enough to know that Emma had been attacked because of someone that his adoptive mother had hurt. Will he be as supportive as the others or will his faith have faltered?

He's a child, she reminds herself, and if his faith has faltered, well then she thinks that she's earned that through all of the times that she gave him reason to doubt her. If that's the case, then all that's left to do is hope that she can convince him that she's still worth saving and still worth loving.

She wonders if she will ever truly stop fearing the loss of her son's love.

She runs a nail lightly over Emma's cracked lips, feeling a gentle spot of moisture on her fingertip as the sheriff exhales. For a moment, she's taken by the need to lean down and kiss Emma, but she stops herself because she'd rather just look at her lover and know that she actually _is_ all right.

She wants to see her and see the way she's inhaling and exhaling.

The way her chest is rising and falling.

She hopes that Emma never understands such desperate needs.

She'll kill again before Henry will.

"I'll be back soon," she tells the sleeping woman. "If your parents come in, they're probably going to ask you for details. Try not to say anything you shouldn't." She's teasing, and it's not like Emma's awake for it, anyway, but it feels like a nice and comfortable thing to do. Something she'd do if Emma were conscious enough to argue with her about it. She reminds herself once again that Emma is going to be fine, and then turns and leaves the room.

Before she does anything stupid.

Whatever that might be.

With her, it truly could be anything, and that scares even her these days.

***** *****

She passes by David and Snow who are standing close together in the hallway, both of them looking sleepy but mostly rested; they'd reluctantly left her alone with Emma a few hours earlier, but even then she'd known that they hadn't gotten very far. Probably no further than Whale's office.

"Regina," Snow says, her voice soft and annoyingly kind.

"I'm going to go see Henry," the former queen cuts in, before Snow can start with pleasantries that still don't fit the relationship between them.

"He's probably halfway through breakfast," David notes. "Want company?"

Her response is immediate, if slightly startled. "No! No…stay with Emma."

"Whale suggested that she'll sleep most of today," Snow offers. "He said that she should have slept all of last night, but well, she's –"

"She's Emma and she doesn't know how to do what she should. I know," Regina sighs, her voice tinged with what sounds like a kind of frustrated affection. She forces herself to calm down, and tries to find the patience to politely decline assistance from David. "It's best – I think – if I speak to Henry alone. We're going to have to face each other eventually."

David nods, and she's intensely grateful for his lack of worthless platitudes or assurances. She thinks maybe his inability to offer even something trite and cloying should make her worry more about Henry's reaction, but for now, she appreciates David's honest response.

"Yeah. We'll be here when you get back," Snow tells her.

"Good," she nods, and she's not sure what exactly she's grateful for, but there's something warm in the middle of her chest that frightens her far more than it has any right to. That warmth shouldn't be there for these two obnoxious life-destroying idiots, and maybe it's not. Maybe all of this is just exhaustion and too much emotion, but what she does know is that she needs to get out of this hospital, and so she does, her head held up high to disguise the fact that she's running away from Snow and David and Emma.

"I don't know about this," David says for probably the twentieth time once the door has closed and Regina has left them alone in the hallway.

Snow shoots him a sharp look. "You're the one who reminded me that is Emma's life, and not ours. And you reminded me how precious love is."

"I know," he chuckles. "And I still believe both of those things, but well, it's Regina, and sometimes I think we're just seconds away from an explosion."

"We are just seconds away, but I think if we try to get between them, the explosion won't come from Regina, but from Emma," Snow tells him. "And I won't lose our daughter over this. I don't want to lose her to Regina, but I also don't want to lose her because of Regina so I think we need to just…"

"Hope for the best."

"And hope this works out best for both of them."

"And if it works out with them being together and actually being each other's True Love?" David prompts between sips of coffee.

"Then we're happy for them," Snow says. "Because I have to think that if they are, then they'll find a way to make each other happy. Right?"

David leans forward and kisses his wife on the forehead. "Right."

***** *****

Regina finds Henry sitting down on the beach, seated on a large piece of driftwood that doesn't look nearly steady enough to support him. Her now shoeless feet sinking deep into the sand, she makes her way slowly towards him, making enough noise to warn him of her approach. "Henry," she says once she's close enough, her voice low and careful so as not to spook him.

"Hi, Mom," he replies, and immediately a strange sense of calm settles over her. He's not calling her by her given name and he's not outright rejecting her; that has to be a good sign.

"How are you this morning, sweetheart?" she asks as she kneels down in front of him; he's taller now, and this is harder, but it still means something to her because it's their thing; it's what she's always done, and will continue to do as long as she's able to.

"You can sit next to me," he offers with something of a shy smile.

"I'm not sure it can support us both," she tells him, her voice gentle.

"Oh. The wood here isn't as strong as the wood down by the beach house."

"It's plenty strong," she assures him, aware that she's having a conversation involving vague metaphors with her twelve-year-old son. "There just might be more wind over here in Storybrooke. We have to shore it up more."

"Right," he nods, looking out at the water.

"Henry –"

"If I ask for the truth – the whole truth - will you give it to me?"

"Within reason."

He looks at her, frowning. "Meaning what?"

"Meaning I will answer any question you ask me as long as it's my story to tell. If it's someone else's, I'll tell you that, but everything else is fair game."

"Really?"

"After everything that we've been through together, I owe you honesty."

He swallows hard, searching her face for deception, and finding only sadness and resignation. She's expecting rejection, he realizes with a start.

"Mom, we're not going anywhere," he tells her.

"I…"

"Emma's okay, right? That's what dad said. That's what Ruby told me."

Regina takes a breath and then offers a thin smile. "Oh, she's fine, Henry," she tells her son. "She was hurt badly, but she's strong and brave, and she doesn't know how to quit when she should so yes, she's going to be okay."

"Then what are you scared about?"

"Who said I was?"

"You promised me the truth."

"I did. Ask me a question."

"I just did."

"How about we come back to that one later. Ask me a different question."

He nods his head. "Tell me what happened yesterday?"

She smiles slightly, this one even thinner than the last one; she should have expected Henry to get right down to the bare bones of it all. "Many years ago, when Storybrooke first appeared on the map, I encountered Owen – the man most of this town has known as Greg Mendell – and I ruined his life out of selfishness, anger and hatred. My actions turned him into me."

Henry tilts his head. "What did you do?"

"Are you sure you want to know?"

He nods his head slowly, but his wary green eyes tell a different story. He wants to know because he thinks he needs to, but he's scared of what he's about to hear; worried that she'll say the one thing that he can't handle.

Still, she had promised her son the truth, and this is her tale to tell now. It occurs to her that she's now the only one left alive who knows it completely now that Owen's memories have been destroyed thanks to Gold's magic.

"I killed his father," she says finally, closing her eyes for a long moment. She can feel the buzzing of a migraine somewhere in the back of her skull, and she knows that even if this conversation goes well, she'll be paying for the stress of the last two days one way or another within the next few hours.

"Why?"

She opens her eyes and looks directly at him. "I could offer you a lot of explanations to try to justify my actions, but the truth is, Henry, I killed Kurt Flynn because he defied me, and because his son left me alone again. I killed him because I was lonely and I was angry, and because I could."

"Oh. Okay," he says softly, frowning as he turns the words over.

She shakes her head. "There's no 'oh, okay' here. What I did was hideously wrong. I never once considered what leaving Owen without a father would do to him because I'd spent most of my own life wishing for my parents to just go away. I loved my mother and father desperately, but as much as I wanted them to love me, I wanted them to leave me to my life even more."

"So what happened to Owen after he left Storybrooke?"

"I don't know, but I don't imagine it was good. Whatever it was wasn't happy, and it didn't heal the wound inside of his heart that I'd created. He's spent the last three decades looking for me. Wanting to make me pay."

"Like you did with Grandma."

"Exactly like I did with her. And just like me, once Owen found a way back into Storybrooke, he took out his vengeance on the wrong person."

"Emma."

"Yes," she replies sadly, reaching out to pick up a broken twig. She winces slightly as she does so, her sore arm reminding her that yeah, it's still there.

"Where is he now? Did you –"

"No. Your father and your grandmother and your grandfather –" she laughs loudly – absurdly - at this because honestly, the family relations in this town have to be incestuous in some way or another. "We all figured out a way to get Owen out of Storybrooke without him getting hurt. He won't be back, but he also won't be plagued with the past that I built within him."

"Magic?" Henry asks, wrinkling his nose.

"Yes. And yes, I used magic yesterday."

"Did it feel weird after not using it for eight months?"

"I wish it did, but it didn't. It felt familiar, and even a little bit good."

"That's bad, right."

"Yes."

He nods his head. "So now what?"

"I don't know. How about we start with what you're thinking right now."

"I'm thinking that I'm glad that this is us now."

"Explain," she says. To anyone else, it would have been a sharply delivered order, but to her son, it's a gentled request for more information.

"We tell each other the truth even it hurts. Even if it's scary. I like that."

"You do?"

"Yeah. We can face anything that way, right? When we were at the beach house, everyone was honest and no one was lying. We were good there."

"We're good here," she tells him. "It's just…it's just harder."

"That's what my dad said, too."

"Well, occasionally your idiot father has an intelligent thought."

"He also said you two are getting along," Henry chucjles.

She scowls at that.

He smiles for a moment, and then grows serious again. "It's harder out here in the real world because you have to face more of your past, isn't it?"

"Yes. At the beach house, it was just the three of us, and the hardest thing there was finding a way to trust each other. Here, we – I – have to deal with the things I've done, and I'm not sure that the two of you should have to."

"What if we want to?"

"You make it sound so simple."

"Because it is simple. You're not who you were, Mom."

"I wish it were that easy, my little prince."

"Is it worth having if it's easy?"

She laughs loudly at this bit of youthful innocence. "I don't know, but I wouldn't mind a few things not being hard every now and again."

"Then don't make them hard."

"What?"

"Emma and I want to be with you. We want to be a family."

"And I'm trying to – for once – do what's best for my family."

"And what is that?"

She simply shakes her head.

"It's okay if you don't know," he tells her. "Because I do. What' best for all of us, Mom, is to be happy. That's what best for you, too."

"Oh, Henry, I want that more than you could ever imagine," she admits with a resigned sigh and another wince as the migraine pushes forward. "I'm just not always sure how to achieve happiness or how to keep it once I have it."

He nods his head. Then, with a small smile, "Do you love her?"

"Emma?"

"Yeah."

"Yes," she replies softly. "I'm not sure when it occurred, but somewhere along the way, Emma became…special to me. She became important."

"Because you love her. You know you can actually say the words, right?"

She chuckles. "I have said it too many times over the last few hours."

"Then why can't you say it to me? Why can't you admit it to me?"

"Because you're my son, and talking to you about love and other emotions like it is…strange. Especially when those emotions involve Emma. I wasn't brought up to be so open with my feelings. Especially not…weak ones."

"Love isn't weak."

"That's taking me time, too," she tells him.

"You know I'm okay with you and Emma, right? I've been okay with you guys being together since we got home. I still am. Even if it is love."

"Why? You were the one person I was so sure would never be okay with it."

"Because it makes you both happy," he shrugs. "And you're my mom, and that's all I've ever wanted. You to be happy. And she makes you it."

"How is it that you're so very sure of that?"

"Because I'm the one who believes," Henry reminds her with an impish grin that reminds her so very much of Emma. "That's my job in this family."

"Yes, you are," she says. She stands up, and points to his side. "May I sit?"

He nods. The driftwood really can't support the both of them, but he's relieved when it somehow does. It creaks and groans, but doesn't give.

"I'm going to stop letting you down," she promises him, her arm slipping around him. "I'm going to do everything I can to stop being her."

"I know you'll try, but it's not easy, right?"

"No," she admits. "It's not, and it probably never will be." She looks down at her hands, flexing her fingers and feeling the magic buzz within them.

"So that means that sometimes you'll be successful and sometimes you won't be, but as long as you're trying, that's enough, isn't it?"

"You tell me. Is that enough for you?"

He thinks for a moment. "It is. Because I just need you to be my mom," he replies. "That's enough for me, and I think that's enough for Emma, too."

"I hope you're right, dear."

"When am I ever wrong?" he asks, sounding exasperated at the question.

She laughs, and wonders how she ever allowed herself to drift away from this boy; he has always been her heart, and without him, she truly is lost. A long time ago, she had believed Daniel to be the person that she could never find a way to live without, and that belief had destroyed all that was good and kind within a sweet young girl's broken heart. Now, she's been given a second chance and though the risks are so very high, she finds herself unable to stop herself from taking the leap of faith, anyway.

So she gently nudges his shoulder and he gently nudges hers back, and this kind of thing is more his and Emma's thing than hers with him, but he's smiling because she is and somehow, that means everything to her.

***** *****

Emma sleeps through the entire day, which Whale is actually relieved about; he tells them that Emma's habit of trying to fight everything had worried him because the sheriff had been struggling with even the painkillers just on instinct alone, and that had stopped her from being able to properly rest.

And she needs so very much rest now and for the foreseeable future.

"She'll be here in the morning," Whale tells them gently, standing completely in front of the doorway into Emma's private room. "I promise."

"So you're no longer worried about complications?" Regina prompts.

"There's always a concern of things like unexpected blood clots, and Sheriff Swan is going to be under observation for a good long while," he answers. "But everything looks really good, and I think we're where we should be."

"I have no idea what any of that meant," Regina snaps. She can feel David and Snow standing at her side, and just behind them are Neal and Henry.

"It means she'll be here in the morning, Regina. You all look exhausted, and the last thing Emma needs is to feel like she has to be strong for you. She has a long road of recovery ahead of her, and she's going to need support from all of you, but if she feels like you need her more, well then I think we all know what she'll do," Whale says, his voice low and oddly soothing.

Not that Regina is at all soothed by him.

She's irritated.

Because he's right.

So she takes a deep breath. "Fine."

His eyebrow lifts, and then he nods his head like of course she answered that way. He looks to the others in the room, collects their agreement and then smiles in a way that makes Regina's skin crawl. "Excellent. Then I will see each of you in the morning. I can't promise that Emma will be awake, but at least everyone will have had a chance for a good night's sleep."

"You're a moron," Regina snaps, and then turns and practically stomps out.

"She means thank you," Henry offers with a sheepish knowing grin.

"I'm well aware of what she meant," Whale assures him. He then steps out of the room, and shuts the door behind him to close off the conversation.

"We'll see you in the morning," David tells him.

"Yes, I'm sure you will," Whale states, meeting David's eyes coolly.

Snow lets out a breath, and then turns to the others. "How about we go find us some food? I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm starved."

***** *****

It's almost eleven at night when Regina sneaks back to the hospital, and she's only moderately surprised to find Neal waiting for her. He's slouched in the chair beside Emma's bed, one of his booted feet atop the blankets.

"Hey," he says with a smile, and a glance down at his watch. "I expected you here hours ago."

Far from amused, she snaps back with, "What the hell are you doing in her room?"

"I figured you'd ask me how I knew you'd be here."

She just stares at him.

"Right. Well the answer is because we share something in common."

"Do we?"

"I know you hate it, but I am always going to love her, Regina. I've made my peace with that she loves you now, and I'm okay with that. But you know what? That's not why I'm here. I mean, I am here because I wanted to see with my own eyes that she is okay and that she's sleeping all right, but I was waiting for you because I thought maybe we should finally have that talk."

"What talk?" she asks with a lifted eyebrow. "And how exactly did you get in here? Did Whale let you in after his lecture about everyone going home?"

"No. I snuck in," Neal answers with a grin. "I'm a thief. Or at least I used to be one. Old habits die hard, I guess. Anyway, how did you get in? Magic?"

"I needed to see her," Regina admits, clearly displeased by this turn of events. Her plan had been to sneak in quickly, say a private goodnight to her sleeping lover and then pop out without anyone knowing she'd been by.

She hadn't expected to see Emma's ex-boyfriend waiting for her.

"So magic," he concludes.

"Yes, magic. Which I will…I will try to stop using in the morning."

"It doesn't work like that and we both know it."

"What exactly is it that you want, Mr. Cassidy?"

He holds up his hands. "Hey, easy. I want the same thing that you do."

"I doubt that."

"Funny because I'm pretty sure of it. We both want Emma and Henry to be safe and happy, and we both want our pasts to stay in the past where they can't hurt anyone." He stands up as he says this, and offers her the chair.

She doesn't even look at it.

"What's your point?" she demands.

"My point is that it doesn't work that way, and we both know it. The past doesn't ever stay where it should no matter how much we might want it to."

"I don't need you to tell me that."

"Maybe you do, maybe you don't. What you do need to do is be honest with Emma. I wasn't. I was a coward like my father and instead of fighting for her and me, I took the easy way out and gave her up and then tried to convince myself that I did it because of destiny. I lost her because I couldn't just man up and tell her that I was terrified of seeing my father again. I lost her because I couldn't find it within me to tell her all of my truths. "

"She knows almost everything."

"But not everything, right? Well, whatever other nasty ass skeletons that you have hiding away in your closet, she needs to know them, too."

"Why is it so important to you that I let her know everything? Are you hoping that all of my secrets together will be too much for her?"

He offers up a somewhat sad smile. "Believe it or not, Regina, I'm actually hoping that her knowing the whole truth about your past will cement the two of you. What happened yesterday, it's going to stick in her mind, and she's going to wonder if there are other ghosts out there that you haven't yet told her about. If you let it, this will come between you two."

"I promised both of them honesty," Regina allows reluctantly. It occurs to her how much she's said this over the last few days. She'd told Henry the truth about Owen, but even she knows that there's so much more to give both he and Emma, and some of it – any of it – could be too much.

But Neal is right; she won't allow Emma to be blindsided by anything else.

"Fine," she agrees. "Was that the talk or did you want to issue an idiotic threat about how if I hurt her or let her get hurt again, you'll –"

"You have magic, Regina," Neal chuckles. "What could I really do to you?"

"Nothing," she says quietly. Then, looking over at Emma, she frowns and blinks away a few drops of moisture that have gathered on her eyelashes.

"Not like I'd need to, anyway," he notes, following her gaze over towards his sleeping ex. Every now and again Emma stirs, but she's quiet enough.

"No," she sighs. "How long will you be staying in town?"

"For a few more days. I managed to find out where Mendell – Owen –  has a place, and before he gets released from the hospital, I want to head over there and try to clean out any other signs of his obsession. If he's been watching you like this for months, then it stands to reason that –"

"That he's been thinking about me non stop for three decades."

"Yeah."

"I believe that David was planning on doing the same thing at his room here in town tomorrow morning; I should probably join him." She grunts then, as if realizing that she should probably say something else. "In case I had forgotten to mention it before, I appreciate your assistance with all of this. You have been….well, you've surprisingly been nothing but a gentleman."

His eyes twinkle almost mischievously, and he opens his mouth like he's about to say something sentimental, and even cloying, but then he thinks better of it, and says instead, "I hope by now that you've figured out that I'm no threat to you. Or to you and Emma. I promise you that."

"Most of me even believes you," Regina admits with an annoyed sounding sigh. "But it's going to be awhile before all of me does."

He shrugs. "Okay. I'm going to get out of here now. Goodnight, Regina."

"Goodnight Mr –"

"Try Neal," he suggests. "We're not friends, but we're not enemies, and we both love the same people. I think that makes us kind of…allies."

"Allies," she repeats. "Very well. Goodnight, Neal."

He chuckles, and then slides out through the door, into the dark hallway.

Leaving her all alone with Emma.

"Hello, dear," she says as she sits down in the chair Neal had been in. "It's been something of a long day, and no, I'm not going to tell you everything while you're sound asleep because you'd probably wake up just to spite me and tell me that I'm cheating, and well tomorrow I'm turning the magic back off but tonight I'm still using it, and I'd really prefer to not to fry you."

She takes a deep breath and laughs.

"So I'm not going to tell you any of my rather horrible stories tonight. I just think…I think I want to sit here with you for a few minutes and…I just want to enjoy the quiet. Can we...do you think that maybe we can do that?"

She doesn't receive an answer from her deeply slumbering lover, but she honestly hadn't been expecting one, either. She knows that she can't stay here for long because Whale will surely check in, and she doesn't really want a fight with him (for once) but she only needs a few minutes, anyway.

Just enough time to reassure herself that she hasn't lost everything all over again.

***** *****

David is already at the cluttered room that Owen had been staying in at Granny's Inn when Regina arrives at just after noon the next day to help him clean it out. He's slowly making his way through things, taking everything – pictures, newspaper articles and crude drawings - down from the walls. She watches for a long moment from the doorway as he painstakingly avoids the photos that show her and Emma in graphically compromising positions.

"I'm sorry that you had to find out this way," she says as she enters, her eyes flickering around the room, and taking in all of the mental chaos. That Owen had been disturbed is beyond dispute at this point, and try as she might, she finds herself struggling to keep the weight of this from toppling her. It was her fault what had happened to him. It always will be her fault.

He looks up and over at her, and offers what is probably meant to be a smile, but comes off more like tired resignation. "Are you? Really?"

"Surprisingly, yes. A few months ago, when we were still at the beach house, I told Emma that I actually looked forward to Snow learning because I knew that it would spin her head, and she'd be outraged by the end of the two of us together."

"Did you get the reaction that you were hoping for, Regina?"

She doesn't answer at first, just steps deeper into the room, and approaches his side. She reaches up for a photo that shows her and Emma curled together on the couch downstairs, the scratchy brown blanket that she'd stolen from the beach house the only thing covering them up.

"I didn't," she admits. "I thought that part of me would find pleasure in Snow realizing that she'd lost her daughter to me, but I don't." She laughs humorlessly. "I don't want Emma losing anything or anyone. I don't want her to have to choose no matter how much I want her to choose me."

She runs her thumb over the picture, her mind jumping back to a morning spent on the couch of the beach house, curled up just like this. Listening to the rain and thinking about how she could stay forever in this position.

But nothing stays the same; everything has to change eventually.

Especially when the real world is involved.

"She promised me that she wouldn't be the one to hurt me. She was right."

"So what are you going to do about it?"

Her entire body tenses up for a moment, and so many things – so many defensive urges – rush to the surface. She almost reminds him of his place, almost tells him that it's none of his business, but he's looking at her with honest eyes, and he's not judging her anymore than any other father would.

"I'm trying," she says simply. "To be worthy of her." It's a staggering confession for her; an admission of vulnerability and lack of self-esteem.

It makes him want to shake her.

Instead, unable to hide his frustration, he shakes his head, his eyes shining with something that looks sad in a way that should irritate her, but doesn't because for once, they're free of the kind of righteous judgment that always used to burn at her. "Love isn't about being worthy, Regina."

"Isn't it?" I'm the Evil Queen and she's the Savior. She may not believe in titles like those, but we do. We grew up with them, David. Heroes and Villains. Very little in-between, and the stories are never kind to Villains."

"That was there."

"There is a place that you very much want to return to."

He smiles slightly, wistfully. "I won't lie to you: sometimes I miss the simplicity of good and bad that we had over there. Doesn't mean I'm not aware of how unfair it was or even how much of an illusion it always was."

She blinks, shocked by his words; she'd always taken him for the flag bearer of the concept of Good and Evil being proven absolutes. It would seem, though, that the surprises of the last few days aren't ready to stop just yet.

Look," he continues after a moment, "You and I may never have been really close, Regina, and I don't know you the way that Emma or Snow do, but I do know that being worthy of being loved has never been your problem. You've always been worthy; everyone is. You've just never allowed yourself to believe that, and you've never allowed yourself to just be happy."

She stares at him for a moment, wanting to argue with him. Needing to.

But she can't because he's right.

 _Love is weakness, Regina_.

It is. It always has been.

_And I still love you. Get used to hearing it, Your Majesty._

She wants to. She needs to.

"I'm trying," Regina says again, reaching up to take another picture down. It shows her and Emma against the wall, and there's entirely too much skin showing for it to be comfortable for either David or herself to be seeing.

But he's not looking at that picture, anyway. Instead, his blue eyes are on the color photograph of Regina and Emma curled up together sound asleep within each other's arms on the couch.

Looking like any other normal happy couple.

After a moment, he simply smiles, and reaches for another picture.

***** *****

They develop a rhythm that helps them deal with Emma's many long weeks in the hospital about three days after the brutal attack in the alley; Henry arrives in her room right after school with a bag full of books and homework, and he drops himself into the seat next to Emma's bed.

If Emma is awake, up in bed and aware – and during the first few days, she seldom is – he quickly tells her about his day at school (thanks especially to her many broken ribs and the painkillers, she's never conscious for long and so he learns to speak rapidly so that neither of them feels as though they missed anything important). If she's sleeping, he starts on his homework, and he keeps at it until dinner is brought in.

Most of the time, it's one of his grandparents that shows up to sit with him beside Emma because Regina typically works until almost seven at night. It's sometime after that when Regina typically arrives. She always offers whomever it was that had picked up dinner – including usually a salad or a sandwich for her – a polite thank you, and then she sits down next to Henry and checks over his homework for him. He hardly needs it anymore – doesn't actually need it at all – but he doesn't dare stop her from doing it.

Because it helps her keep her from worrying about Emma.

Once his homework is checked, and it's just the two of them, she usually starts on paperwork of her own, all the while listening to Henry prattle on about this boy or this girl at school. She hears everything  he says, but still manages to get budgets and requisitions completed in triplicate.

He wonders how he'd never noticed how good she was at her job. He supposes that when she'd just been the Evil Queen, it hadn't been so important to think about the things that she'd done that had been normal.

He regrets those days even as he realizes that without them, they wouldn't be here now. On the cusp of being a complete if unusual family.

Sometimes, Emma surprises them by waking up and jumping into the middle of a conversation and that's when things get a little weird.

Because none of them are handling wounded Emma in a bed well at all.

Especially not Regina.

Oh, she gives it her best go. She fusses and she forces herself to be patient and calm, and not to show all of the ugly emotions that are swimming around. She tries not to let Emma see how much all of this is affecting her.

She answers all of Emma's questions, and plays the doting and completely calm and not at all worried girlfriend and mother. She forces smiles and tells Emma that she thinks it's high time that the sheriff stops lazing about.

But then Whale kicks them out for the night, and Henry goes back the mansion with his mother, and he sees the way she squints in pain as they walk through the brightly lit foyer. It's the one lie that she still tells him – that she's all right, and that she's handling Emma's absence well. He knows better, but he also knows that she's trying to be strong for everyone.

So he gives her a hug, tells her he loves her and then heads up to his bed.

***** *****

The hardest part for her is the coming home at night to an empty bedroom; sure, she and Emma hadn't been officially living together, but the sheriff had been spending the night over maybe five days out of every seven, and she'd made an effort to at least drop by for the other two. Now, it's been over a month since she's been at the house, and her scents are fading away.

Regina has to forcibly remind herself that Emma's recovery is going just fine, and as long as she continues to make progress (and perhaps stop being so stubborn with the physical therapy) she's likely to be released from the hospital before too much longer. That doesn't mean she'll come back here because she technically has her own apartment, but she'll be closer at least.

Still, it's hard to focus on such things when she's at her lowest because the sheets have been washed a dozen times over by now, and even the most stubborn of scents – the one that clung to the pillows – is finally gone.

It's maddening to Regina that she realizes this, and even more maddening that she's sentimental enough to miss something so…insignificant.

Because Emma is only five miles across town, sound asleep in a hospital bed.

She'll be home soon.

Then, they can talk.

She finds that she actually misses their story-time. Over the last few weeks, they've been afforded precious little one on time, and what they have been able to sneak in has been largely spent trying to make each other laugh.

Nothing deeper or more important than that.

It hasn't seemed the time or place for such.

Even Regina knows that she's stalling.

But then, Emma hasn't seemed to be too eager to open that box, either.

That's what the most concerning part to Regina. Normally, Emma is the one who pushes for honesty and truth; she'd been the one who pushed during every part of the therapy at the beach house, and she's always been the one who refuses to turn away from the darker areas in their relationship.

Now, she's acting like everything is good and fine between them.

It's a nice and kind lie, but it still is a lie.

Regina curls herself up under the mattress – realizing how big the bed is when there's only one person in it – and pulls the blankets up over her. She won't sleep well tonight, she knows, because her mind will be in motion.

Thinking about all of the things she needs to confess to.

Thinking about all of the things she needs to find an explanation for.

How like a Charming it is for David to believe that everyone is worthy of love; how could someone whose hands are as stained with reds as hers are ever be worthy of such? How can she ever earn the right to be loved again?

Is it selfish to even consider trying to fight for a relationship with Emma? Is it wrong? How is someone who has lived their whole life despising the concepts of right and wrong supposed to truly know what is and what isn't?

She turns in the bed, reaches for the space beside her, and when she feels nothing there but the coolness of her sheets, she wonders when it was she'd lost the ability to be alone and to be accustomed to the quiet of solitude.

It's loud, she thinks, this terrible quiet.

And she wants it to stop.

_She just wants it to stop._

***** *****

Despite a few gains early on in the process, rehab and physical therapy are going terribly. Mostly because Emma is a petulant pain in the ass who recognizes the need for it, but when it's time to actually get down to it, she despises the PT so much that she becomes impossible to work with.

For the first several weeks after Emma is finally allowed to be up and out of the bed (though she's still forced to remain in the hospital), Regina stays completely out of it; she lets Snow and David and Ruby and Whale help the sheriff through the paces, and it goes about as well as could be expected.

Which is to say that there's entirely too much coddling going on, and for the first time in her life, Emma is lapping it up with a spoon, allowing everyone to let her rest when she knows she could keep pushing and probably should.

When concerns are expressed, Whale simply sighs dramatically, and states that this kind of less than enthusiastic response to the physical therapy is fairly typical of someone who went through what she did. Emma's likely quite depressed, he supposes, and they should all just try to be patient with because Emma being is who she is, she'll certainly come around in time.

That, of course, is when Regina decides to step in and do something because the Emma Swan she knows isn't the kind to sit on her ass and wait.

And she's sure not going to get any better like this.

"You have two choices," Regina says when she enters Emma's room at a quarter after one on a Tuesday morning. She finds Emma resting on the bed, blankets over her legs, and a colorful magazine in her hands.

"Hi to you, too," Emma says with a sleepy smile. "You're early."

"Would you like to know your choices?"

"Depends. We talking about food? Because a cheeseburger sounds good."

"No, dear, we're talking about you. You need to stop feeling sorry for yourself, and get out of this bed. It's time to get back on your feet."

"In case you haven't noticed, I have been trying to do exactly that."

"No, actually you've mostly been complaining about trying."

Emma's eyes narrow, and the magazine drops from her hand. "You get almost every bone in your chest broken, and tell me how easy it is."

"I have never claimed that it was easy. Or that it would be."

"Because you don't know. You have no idea what it's like to feel like someone basically turned your insides into broken shards of glass."

"I'm sorry that you do."

"You should be."

The expression on Emma's face would almost be comical if it wasn't so horrified; the moment the words leave her lips, she clearly wishes that she could pull them back, and she opens her mouth to try to, but Regina waves her attempt at an apology way. "Don't," she says softly. "I understand."

" I shouldn't have –"

"But you needed to," Regina tells her. "And you should have said it a long time ago. Believe it or not, Emma, it is all right to be angry with me."

"No, it's not. I don't want to be."

"But you shouldn't stop yourself from being it. You've been the hero for so long, always holding everyone up. Always holding me up. That's not fair."

"It's what I'm supposed to do," the sheriff says, looking down at her blankets. Her wounded leg has been improving steadily, but it still hurts badly to put any weight on it, and even considering running makes her ache.

"We don't work like that," Regina says simply. "We can't. Now, back to those choices. You can either speak to me or you can speak to Archie."

"What about?"

"What you're afraid of."

"Who said I'm afraid of anything?"

"You're reading a magazine instead of demanding that someone help you get back on your feet as of yesterday. You're not a quitter, Emma, and right now you are quitting on yourself. Maybe it's because you don't want to come home because you know that means we'll have to deal with what we are now or maybe it's because you're afraid of your own mortality. Either way, it's time to face the truth and answer that question for yourself."

"Both," Emma allows, her eyes on the magazine again. "I'm afraid of both."

"Look at me."

"What?"

"The agreement we made at the beach house. You promised me that you would never look away from me. You promised me that you would keep my eyes no matter what else happened. I expect you to keep that promise."

Emma's eyes lift, and they're full of tears. "I'm sorry," she says.

"You have nothing to apologize for, and I can't apologize enough."

Emma's head falls back against the pillow. "I don't know what to do here. I don't know how to make this right for me. Or for us. And I want to."

"You need to stop worrying about us for the time being, dear. We don't matter as much as you do." She steps closer to Emma and reaches out for her, a soft warm palm sliding across the sheriff's cool cheek. "As for how to make it right for you, that involves you doing what you do best, Emma."

"Which is what?"

"Fight. Every moment of every day that I've known you, you've fought."

"I'm tired."

"I know. So am I." She leans in and gently kisses Emma on the lips, allowing the soft embrace to linger for several long moments. When she pulls back, she says, "I'm going to call Dr. Hopper. I think it'll be good for you to speak to someone who is good at listening. If he can help me, he can help you."

"Shouldn't we do this? You and me?"

"That you have to ask that question tells me that maybe we shouldn't."

"Regina, please, don't do this. You need me."

"I do, but…I'm okay. I miss you, Emma. I miss you being around the house, I miss you annoying me while I'm trying to get paperwork done, and I miss you leaving your clothes all over the place. I even miss the obnoxious water rings your beer bottles make on the table. What I miss the most, though, is seeing that confidence in your eyes. I miss the things that I always used to hate about you. We all change, my love, and what Owen did to you has changed both of us, but it shouldn't take away everything that you are."

"Are you breaking up with me?" Emma asks, her voice terribly quiet and pained and young. For the moment, she's not the Savior, but simply a young frightened girl who has been through so very much, and wants so very little.

"No, but I am giving you a way out of this relationship if you want it."

"I don't want it. I don't…I don't want to talk to Archie or anyone else about what happened to me, Regina. I want to talk to you," Emma pleads.

"Are you sure about that? Because I will push you."

"I don't understand."

"If you insist on us doing this together, without Archie, I want you to know that I will push you as hard as I can. Both to get up and to open up."

"You of all people is going to push me to spill my guts?"

"I owe you that much. You wouldn't stop pushing me, and as much as I hated you most of the time we were there, I also fell in love with you."

"That makes it sound so twisted."

"We're not exactly normal."

"But are we healthy?"

Regina shrugs her shoulders. "Being with you is good for me. Whether or not it's good for you is a question that you have to answer for yourself."

"We were doing well," Emma insists, wincing a bit as she adjusts.

"We were, but I'm not sure we were as honest as we need to be."

"Please don't leave me."

"Emma –"

"You think that's what I want? You think I want another person I love to just walk away from me for my own good? You think I want someone deciding what's best for me? I don't. I want you. I want us. And yeah, maybe it hurts right now, and maybe I don't trust you as much as I did, but I want to. You want me to fight? Fine. I'll fight, but I don't want to do it alone again."

Tears are flowing down her cheeks now, and she looks so young and hurt, and it's more than enough to make Regina's heart feel like it's exploding.

"Everyone leaves me, Regina. Eventually everyone does. Please. Don't."

"I'm trying to do what's…I'm trying not to be selfish here," Regina attempts to explain, her own eyes filling with tears. She imagines that part of Emma's emotional rawness is due to exhaustion, lack of sleep and the painkillers she's still taking, but the other part is clearly all about the issues that she's spent so very much of her life burying away. Sure, she'd dealt with much of her insecurities while they'd been at the beach house, but this is different.

This is all about feeling like she's never had control of her own life. Her parents had sent her through a tree so that she could survive and return to save everyone, and then Neal had walked away from her so that she could fulfill a destiny that he himself had never really wanted to be any part of.

"Everyone is always trying to figure out what I'm meant to do, and no one ever cares what I want to do," Emma continues, tears on her shirt now.

"Tell me," Regina prompts. "Tell me what you want, Emma."

"I want someone to be selfish about me for once," Emma admits quietly. "It'd be a nice change for someone to not want to let go of me because it's for the best. It would be nice for someone to want to fight to keep me."

Regina lets out a caught breath, amazed how badly she'd misread the situation; she'd spent most of the night up trying to find a way to exit the romantic relationship with Emma, but somehow keep the friendship. She had figured that would be the best way to allow them both to move on.

She had figured that despite Emma's insistence that they could make it through this, the sheriff would have been grateful for the easy escape.

Especially considering the anger that she's still holding within her.

She'd never expected Emma to want differently even while dealing with feelings of blame and hurt and fear over what had occurred to her.

There's a strange warmth in the middle of her chest as she glances down at Emma, realizing once again just how very much like one another they are.

"Be sure about what you're asking for here, Emma," Regina presses. "Because if I don't let go of you now, I'm never going to let go."

"Then don't."

Regina nods slowly. "Fine, but I think we both still should talk to Archie."

"I'll talk to Archie if you'll talk Whale into letting me go home."

Regina's eyebrow lifts. "You think you're ready?"

"I need to wake up to pancakes," Emma replies. "Not heart monitors."

"Very well. I will talk to him, but no promises."

"I know." Emma tells her. "And I am sorry."

"For what?"

"For feeling the way I do towards you when it hurts the most."

Regina smiles sadly, and then lightly runs a nail over Emma's cheek, glad that the bruises are gone, "That's why I love you as much as you love me."

"Because I can be irrational?"

"Because you're real to me. I've never wanted you to be my savior, dear. That you have been has been an interesting twist, but I just wanted a partner."

"Well, I'm here. Just promise me you won't lose faith in me," Emma says, and it's a reminder of the conversation that they'd had on the porch of the mansion weeks earlier. Just about an hour before Owen had attacked her.

Regina takes her hand and brings it to her lips. "Don't give up on me."

Emma reaches up, cups the back of her neck, pulls her down for a kiss and holds it there, allowing her tears to slide across Regina's cheeks.

"I won't if you won't," she says.

"You have yourself a deal, Sheriff," Regina answers breathily. Once she collects herself, she adds, "Now how about you close your eyes and rest; I'll speak to Victor and see if I can't get you home in time for dinner tonight."

***** *****

Victor argues and complains, but in the end he surrenders to the might of the Queen. It doesn't hurt that David and Snow both support her request as well, both of them realizing that Emma needs to be home in order to heal.

There's very little discussion about where she'll go after being released; the loft has always been too small for three people, and though Emma's own apartment enough is comfortable for someone with normal needs, it would be painfully cramped for someone with limitations thanks to her recovery.

It's decided, then, that she'll move in with Regina for the time being.

She's been pretty much living there, anyway, Henry helpfully offers up. He then ignores the surprised and slightly uncomfortable looks from the adults.

The next question is where Emma will sleep.

That, too, is decided quickly enough.

"Where we always sleep," Emma says tiredly. "I just want to crash out."

She gets kissed goodnight by her mother, her father and her son, and then she lets her lover lead her up to their bed, and bring her down next to her.

"I missed these sheets," she mumbles.

"And my pillows, too," Regina notes as she pulls the blankets up over them, and then brings Emma to her, holding her as gently as she possibly can.

"Yeah. I love your pillows."

It's the last thing Emma says until she wakes up screaming three hours later.

They're in the bathroom together – under the lukewarm water of the shower – and Emma is crying and trembling in her arms. She'd woken up five minutes earlier screaming thanks to a nightmare about Owen and the alley, and then before a sleepy Regina could say anything to calm her down, she'd jumped up and even on a bad leg, rushed into the bathroom.

Perhaps she'd been trying to use the water to muffle her sobs.

It hadn't worked, though, because Regina had immediately followed her into the bathroom, and then into the shower, and now here they are.

Regina wants to apologize and keep apologizing until her throat is raw and her lips are parched, but the words are useless, and they're not what Emma needs from her right now. What Emma needs is her strength, and she needs to hear that everything will be okay. She needs to know that it will be.

She holds her lover close and whispers into her ear sweet gentle words that should mean nothing to a woman who has lived the life that Emma has.

But apparently they mean everything; she feels Emma relax against her.

So she ups the ante and pulls Emma even closer and and kisses her cheeks and her jaw and her neck. She allows herself to linger over Emma's pulse point, feeling the way is vibrates beneath her lips. She says those three little words over and over, and they feel like blood rushing out of her – so bright and vibrant and necessary, and she couldn't stop saying them if she tried to.

The water is getting cold, and Emma is shivering, but she doesn't pull away.

She's going to hurt in the morning, but that doesn't stop her from taking Regina's hand and guiding it across her body so very gently, like she needs the contact and the feel of being touched almost more than she needs air.

Her eyes flicker closed, and she whimpers out her pleasure as her legs spread and her body responds. As stars burst behind her eyes, she allows herself to feel something besides pain and fear for the first time in weeks.

When it's over, and Regina is still holding her against the hard far wall of the shower, the water is nearly freezing, and now they've both shivering, but Emma is smiling because that's one way to chase away a terrible nightmare.

"Can you stand?" Regina asks her as she turns off the cold water.

"Here is good," Emma protests, slumped against Regina's lap. The former queen is still wearing her pajamas, though they're soaked through now.

"We are not sleeping here," Regina replies.

"Not sure we have a choice; I can't stand."

"Try. It's only a few feet to the bed," Regina chuckles as she slowly extracts herself, and pushes herself up to her feet, a hand stretched out for Emma.

"Is this a test?" Emma asks lazily, her eyes lidded. She thinks that the idea of trying to get her legs to work after what had just happened is absurd, but she also knows deep down that in a moment or two, she'll be trying anyway.

Because apparently Regina has a way of making her find her fight.

"No, dear; I'd just prefer Henry not find us here in the morning. He may understand that we're intimate, but I'm not sure even Archie could handle the fallout from him finding us sprawled out naked in the shower."

Emma snorts at the visual. "Yeah, probably not. Okay. I can do this."

Regina nods, and then just waits, her hand still out. When Emma finally takes it, it's not easy to pull her up, but then she's up and they're both just looking at each other like they think this moment means something big.

Like it means they've taken a first step forward.

Then Regina chuckles and says, "You do like your showers."

Emma laughs because everything hurts and nothing does. So she leans in and wraps her arms around Regina, and presses her lips to her forehead.

And thinks that there really is no place like home.

***** *****

He watches them for several minutes, frowning slightly as he looks from woman to woman. Neither one of them is speaking, but it's not because they're fighting so much as that both of them have convinced themselves that it's not their place to tell the others' story. It isn't, of course, but since this session is about the two of them and their issues and not just individual ones, he thinks that it's probably okay for one of them to start the talking.

"He hates it when I do this," Regina finally sighs. "He always reminds me how long it's been since the last time I spoke." She looks right at him when she says this, daring him to contest her words. He just nods his head at her.

"We can wait as long as you both would like," Archie assures them.

"But we're here for a reason," Emma states.

"Exactly. So why don't we open up with something that's hopefully fairly simple to answer. Regina, any issues with your magic?"

"No," she replies. "I'm still on the wagon." Her tone indicates her distaste at viewing magic as an addiction (he's had many a conversation with her about her feelings that magic is elemental to her, and has never been the problem so much as how she uses it, and though he's inclined to believe she's right about that, the fact that she's so rarely used magic in a good way has led them both to the decision to completely abstain).

"Good. And how are you, Emma? How are you feeling these days?"

"Better," she allows, glancing over at Regina and giving her an oddly amused look that Archie can't quite figure out. "I have almost full movement and range back in my leg and wrist and my ribs. I'm even going to try working a few half shifts next week to see if I'm ready to go back full-time."

Regina purses her lips, but stays quiet.

"Regina?" Archie prompts. "Is there something that's bothering you about what Emma just said?" His voice is calm and soothing, and one of these days she's going to tell him just how much she detests this particular tone of his.

"No."

"Yes," Emma corrects. "She doesn't want me to go back just yet."

"Oh. Why not?"

"Because she's got most of her motion back, and not all of it," Regina replies, like it should be very obvious why she thinks it's a poor idea.

"For someone who wanted me back up on my feet, she's suddenly gotten very nervous about anytime I show any kind of pain," Emma comments.

"Those two things aren't the same at all," Regina scolds. "I wanted you to stop feeling sorry for yourself, which isn't at all similar to wanting you to not return to work before your body is ready for you to do so. What will happen if you end up having to chase someone down, and your leg gives out?"

"The worst crime we've seen in this town since my attack was kitty on kitty violence, and everyone is pretty sure the catnip was responsible for it."

Regina just glares at her, which earns her a cheeky grin in response.

"You're not upset," Archie observes of Regina. "Just annoyed with her."

"Which is typical. Her over-protective streak is actually kind of –"

"Shut up," Regina grumbles.

"I see," Archie notes, and then scribbles something down on his obnoxiously omnipresent pad of paper. "So you're doing better, but how are you two?"

There's a long moment of silence, and then Regina says in a low voice that's both cool and yet somehow unsteady, "I showed her my journal."

"Your journal from?"

"When I was the Queen. I kept one consistently before the King…before I had him killed. After that, it was more infrequent, but I still utilized it."

"I see. How detailed is it?"

"Enough where if we were back in the Enchanted Forest and there was a war tribunal being held, they could convict me with it and it alone."

"It was pretty bad," Emma admits. Her hands come together in front of her for a moment, and then she glances over at Regina – dressed perfectly as always - and notices the way that her own hands are twisting around in a clear display of open anxiety. Without even thinking about it, she reaches out and takes one of Regina's hands, squeezing it tightly within her own.

Such contact probably isn't proper in a couples therapy kind of setting, but Emma's never been one to much care about what is and isn't proper; she just wants to offer the same reassurances to Regina that the former queen has been offering to her over the last few difficult months: it will be okay.

Everything will be okay.

"Does it help to know everything she's done?" Archie asks.

"I don't know if help is the right word," Emma replies. "And I'm not sure if I will ever really know everything, but I think…I think we're good at telling each other stories. It's kind of what we do. She tells me one of hers, and I tell her one of mine, and we both remember what matters and doesn't."

"Would you agree?" he asks of Regina.

"We have our disagreements about what matters and doesn't," Regina corrects, "But yes, I think we're getting better as we go along."

He nods his head slowly. "Good. Now what about the headaches?"

He doesn't miss the concerned look that Emma throws towards the former queen. It's enough to tell him that this is a frequent conversation of theirs.

"They're controlled," Regina states. "Days like today will be harder."

"Because of the stress?"

She looks right at him, and he knows that thanks to her past and the many demons that exist within it, no matter how much progress he makes with her and no matter how much she might learn to trust him, there will always be times when she can't allow herself to show weakness in front of others.

"Do you at least let each other know when you're hurting?" he asks.

"We try to," Emma replies. "Some habits die hard."

"Of course. So, if I might ask, where is your relationship these days?"

The women exchange a look, and then Regina sighs. "She moved in."

"That's a bad thing?"

"Of course not."

"It's a bad thing that I know?"

Emma chuckles.

"It's a bad thing –"

"Oh for God's sake, it's obviously not a bad thing, but it is a bad thing that her insipid parents seem to feel the constant need to be over now. They apparently believe that because we're no longer hiding our relationship that we should all pretend that we're some happy normal easy-going family."

"And that bothers you?"

"I don't want Snow in my house," she replies grouchily.

Emma snickers again.

"I feel like I'm missing something," Archie states.

"She's struggling with the fact that she and my mother are actually kind of getting along these days. Same with her and Neal. I think she prefers her enemies to stay her enemies, and she's actually starting to run out of them."

"Oh, please, I brought over thousands of worthless peasants who still hate me," Regina replies crankily. "Finding enemies is hardly a challenge."

"Which is why those peasants re-elected her in a landslide."

"My only competition was the disturbingly skinny little pig that Ruby forgot to eat because she was too full at the time," Regina shoots back. "Plus, it's not like anyone else in this town actually knows how to balance a budget."

"Seems to me that you're having some issues letting go of old feelings of distrust towards the people in this town," Archie notes.

"Can you blame me?"

"If they can try to trust you again –"

Regina snorts. "Like I give a damn what they think."

"But I do," Emma states. "And I like that we can have lunch together out at Granny's without worrying about what everyone is thinking. And besides, you're full of shit. You actually love that you won in a landslide."

"I like to win."

"Okay, let's change the subject a bit," Archie suggests. "What about your relationship with Snow and David? Is that continuing to improve?"

"No."

"Bullshit. She and my father took Henry horseback riding last week."

"How'd that go?" Archie inquires.

Regina ignores him and turns towards Emma. "You know I'm never going to be really close to either of your parents, don't you? I might get along with them, and even do everything I can to bury our pasts, but they're still there, and there's only so much healing that can ever really happen between your mother and I. We will always still have so much bloody history behind us."

"I know, and all joking aside, I'm not expecting or even hoping for anything more that what we already have. I'm just glad that I don't have to choose."

"We were never going to make you have to choose," Regina assures her. "I think that's the one thing that all of us always agreed upon."

Emma squeezes her hand in appreciative response to that.

"Okay, so we've touched on your jobs, your pasts, your family situation and Regina's headaches. Emma, what about your nightmares?"

"They come and go. They've been better lately, but they're still around."

"And Regina, what about yours?"

"They're a part of me," she says simply.

"So what do you do if you both wake up with nightmares?"

The women exchange a look of amusement, and then Emma smirks. It's enough to make Archie's eyes go wide as he realizes what they're implying.

"I mean…I don't mean to get personal like that. I…"

"Relax, Doctor," Regina drawls. "We use the heavy bag out that's out in the garage. It was something that worked out well for us at the beach house, and we've found that it still has some value here in Storybrooke as well."

"And then we do that other thing."

Regina shoots her a look and Archie coughs to clear his look; Emma grins.

"Right. Okay, good. And what about Henry? How is he?"

"You see him every week," Emma reminds him.

"Then let me clarify, how is he with the two of you?"

"I think he's…" Regina pauses, searching for the right word. "I think he's happy having both of us. And I think he's happy with…I think in general."

"I would agree," Archie notes, again scribbling on the pad.

"So, then Archie," Emma prompts. "Tell us: how are we doing?"

He chuckles. "You're making it work," he says. "And that's all that matters."

"I know a nonsense answer when I hear one," Regina reminds him.

"I'm sorry. What I meant was, if someone had asked me months ago if the Evil Queen and the Savior could ever find their way to a real form of love, I would have had my doubts. Even after the beach house, you were both still keeping secrets from each other, and trying to protect each other instead of trying to grow what you'd built. It's terrible to say, but Owen may have done you both a favor by forcing you to look into the eyes of your relationship and accept that it's the imperfections of it that make it work."

"Did he have to nearly kill me to make that point?" Emma grouses.

"Probably not, but what's done is done, and you've both come out stronger because of it. You've actually built something real now, something that doesn't exist simply because of the absence of conflict and noise."

"Yeah," Emma agrees, her hand tightening around Regina's again. "Okay."

Regina settles for blinking her eyes in agreement, her throat suddenly too tight to get any kind of words out; this kind of thing is quite unbelievable to her, that she could out of the ruins of so much hurt have built something so good. But she has and the proof of it is in the hand that holds hers.

"I think we're done for the day," Archie says gently. "It's a beautiful afternoon, and I'm sure Pongo would like to take advantage of it. You two should as well. Regina, I'll see you here next Wednesday as usual, yes?"

"Of course."

She stands up, wipes out her eyes, and then offers him a smile.

It's rare and beautiful and he smiles back like she'd just given him a hug.

She exhales, and Emma touches her back lightly, and says, "How about it, Madam Mayor? You up for an afternoon of hooky with the Sheriff?"

Regina rolls her eyes in response. "Don't think I won't dock your pay for it."

"I'm not back on the clock yet, remember? Can you dock your own pay?"

"Why would I do that? I'm allowed to be frivolous."

"I didn't know you knew the word."

"Hilarious, dear. My jacket, please?"

"Of course," Emma drawls as she helps Regina into the jacket. Her gait is a bit awkward and odd thanks to her mostly healed leg, but neither of them notice it, so wrapped up are they in their rapid-fire back and forth.

Archie watches as Emma pulls Regina close to her side, and whispers something improper in her ear – improper enough to make the former queen color around the cheekbones, and then swat the sheriff away from her with what sounds like an aggrieved huff.

It comes out more like an amused sigh.

When they leave his office, walking close together down the street, he watches them from the window, his glasses high on his nose and eyes on them the whole way as they cross towards Granny's Diner. They're not like normal couples and never will be. Regina will never be comfortable with dramatic displays of public affection, and Emma will never feel the desire to be a complete homebody. He thinks that they will always push and pull each other to their very limits of their tolerance with each other.

But maybe this is always how it was supposed to go.

Because the Evil Queen and the Savior falling in love with each other? That's the kind of insanity that literary lunatics write volumes about. That's the kind of thing that people in this world act out on stages and write ballads about.

This one just happens to be about war and peace and family and love.

And how only through the haze of war could these two find a kind of peace.

A kind of peace which includes family and love and new beginnings.

Archie turns to Pongo and says, "You ready to head out for the day, boy?"

Pongo wags his tail happily and lets out a short sharp bark.

The quiet man who had once been a heartbroken cricket in need of redemption who had once been a cowardly man who made a terrible mistake considers the many strange and wonderful things that can bring even a desperately broken and lonely soul happiness. He glances once more down the street at the disappearing forms of the Savior and the Evil, Queen, and he thinks about the curious stories that will one day be written about their relationship.

Not yet, though.

Because there's still so much more to tell.

He smiles again at this thought, and then closes the window.

_-Fin_

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me, if you're so inclined, over at sgtmac7 over on Tumblr.


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